The Chapin 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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4.43 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1893. The next wettest, 3.95 inches, fell in 1940.
Chapin’s center stands about 480 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 330 ft to 580 ft, a difference of 250 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Little Mountain, about 830 ft, 4 miles west-northwest.
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 39×. 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 10 mi of the line.
Metatonalite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Metavolcanic, gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic to Ordovician, 445 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Metasiltstone, metasandstone. Age: Middle Cambrian, 497 to 521 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Slate. Age: Middle Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 521 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.
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 Chapin reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Wateree Creek, the Broad, the Congaree, the Santee and the South Santee: about 210 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 Chapin; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Chapin has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 35° in January. About 46 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 1 inch of snow.
On November 14 Chapin normally reaches 65° and falls to 44°. The record high is 84°, in 1931; the record low 23°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 2.17 in, fell in 1997.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Little Mountain, 4 miles west-northwest, 230 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
