The Caesars Head 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.
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75° on Nov. 11, 2024, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1967. Next is 72° in 2001.
Caesars Head’s center stands about 3,040 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,110 ft to 3,190 ft, a difference of 2,080 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Cedar Rock Mountain, about 4,060 ft, 15 miles northwest.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 8×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gneiss. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Mica-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Mica-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Early Devonian, 409 to 410 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Silurian, 438 to 439 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Early Cambrian, 524 to 525 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 Caesars Head reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Coldspring Branch, the Middle Saluda, the South Saluda, the Saluda, the Congaree, the Santee and the South Santee: about 360 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lib Pines Lake and Lake Murray.
110 miles of the trip are on the Saluda.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Caesars Head; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Caesars Head has a oceanic climate. Summer afternoons average 78° in July; winter nights fall to about 28° in January. A normal year brings about 7 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 74 inches of water.
On November 14 Caesars Head normally reaches 55° and falls to 38°. The record high is 70°, in 2020; the record low 16°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.40 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1967 at Caesars Head, here, 160 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
