The Gadsden 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.
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Sunny
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
75° on Nov. 11, 2024, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1924. Next is 72° in 1931.
Gadsden’s center stands about 170 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 120 ft to 220 ft, a difference of 100 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Cooks Mount, about 390 ft, 12 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Duplin Formation (sand, clay), from the Pliocene, 2.6 to 5.3 million years old.
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 55×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Clay, sand. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sand, clay. Age: Pliocene, 2.6 to 5.3 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Clay, sand. Age: Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Clay, sand. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 72 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 72 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 Gadsden reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Toms Creek, the Congaree, the Santee and the South Santee: about 150 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 Gadsden; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Gadsden 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 Gadsden normally reaches 55° and falls to 38°. The record high is 72°, in 1931; the record low 16°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 2.40 in, fell in 1961.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1924 from the Caesars Head Area threaded record (Columbia Metropolitan Airport, 21 miles west-northwest). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
