The Catawba 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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18° on Nov. 15, 1969, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1899. Next is 20° in 1933.
Catawba’s center stands about 590 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 450 ft to 730 ft, a difference of 280 ft: rolling country.
The section below crosses 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 59×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Metagranite, metadiorite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metadiorite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metagabbro. Age: Neoproterozoic to Devonian, 359 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Metavolcanic. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 359 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Metavolcanic, gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic to Ordovician, 445 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 4 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 Catawba reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Abernathy Creek, the Catawba, the Wateree, the Congaree, the Santee and the South Santee: about 250 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lib Pines Lake.
90 miles of the trip are on the Wateree.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Catawba; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Catawba has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 32° in January. About 43 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Catawba normally reaches 64° and falls to 41°. The record high is 81°, in 1931; the record low 21°, in 2013. The most rain on this date, 1.33 in, fell in 1940.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1899 at Winthrop University, 9 miles northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
