The Boiling Springs 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.
4.02 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1928. The next wettest, 3.28 inches, fell in 2018.
Boiling Springs’s center stands about 920 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 790 ft to 970 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Thicketty Mountain, about 1,260 ft, 13 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Sillimanite-mica schist and muscovite-biotite schist (mica-schist), from the Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 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.
Biotite-gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mica-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Amphibolite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 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.
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 Boiling Springs reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Big Shoally Creek, Lawsons Fork Creek, the Pacolet, the Broad, the Congaree, the Santee and the South Santee: about 310 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lib Pines Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Boiling Springs; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Boiling Springs has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 27° in January. About 52 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 1 inch of snow.
On November 14 Boiling Springs normally reaches 63° and falls to 35°. The record high is 79°, in 1931; the record low 18°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.64 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1928 at Chesnee 7 WSW, 5 miles north, 170 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.