The Blythewood plate. Relief from Copernicus GLO-30; rivers and lakes from USGS NHD; watersheds from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; roads and city limits from Census TIGER 2024.
Sunny
Sunny; warmer
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17° on Nov. 17, 1997, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1993. Next is 19° in 1993.
Blythewood’s center stands about 510 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 390 ft to 570 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Persimmon Fork Formation (metavolcanic), from the Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 44×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Metavolcanic. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Mylonite. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 359 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Slate. Age: Middle Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 521 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Metagranite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Metasiltstone, metasandstone. Age: Middle Cambrian, 497 to 521 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 2 smaller units along the line are not listed.
Heights from Copernicus GLO-90 (a surface model: it includes buildings and tree canopy); summits from USGS GNIS; rivers from USGS NHDPlus HR; rock from the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation.
A raindrop that lands in Blythewood reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Beasley Creek, Crane Creek, the Broad, the Congaree, the Santee and the South Santee: about 200 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lib Pines Lake.
70 miles of the trip are on the Santee.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Blythewood; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Blythewood has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 29° in January. About 46 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1993 at Cedar Creek 2 E, 6 miles west, 170 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
