The Cope 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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5.90 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1951. The next wettest, 2.42 inches, fell in 2023.
Cope’s center stands about 210 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 160 ft to 270 ft, a difference of 110 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Neogene strata (undifferentiated) (sand, gravel), from the Tertiary Neogene to Quaternary, less than 23 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 64×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sand, gravel. Age: Tertiary Neogene to Quaternary, less than 23 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Sand, clay. Age: Pliocene, 2.6 to 5.3 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Clay, sand. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 3 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 Cope reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Snake Swamp, the South Fork Edisto, the Edisto and the North Edisto: about 140 river miles.
100 miles of the trip are on the Edisto.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Cope; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Cope has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 36° in January. About 48 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Cope normally reaches 66° and falls to 44°. The record high is 82°, in 1951; the record low 24°, in 2013. The most rain on this date, 0.50 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1951 at Bamberg, 7 miles south-southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
