The Gaffney 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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5.77 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1893. The next wettest, 3.56 inches, fell in 2009.
Gaffney’s center stands about 790 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 640 ft to 870 ft, a difference of 230 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Thicketty Mountain, about 1,260 ft, 7 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Sillimanite-mica schist and muscovite-biotite schist (mica-schist), from the Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 27×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Biotite-gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Mica-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Metavolcanic. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Schist. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metavolcanic. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Mica-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 1 smaller unit 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 Gaffney reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Irene Creek, Thicketty Creek, Gilkey Creek, the Broad, the Congaree, the Santee and the South Santee: about 290 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lib Pines Lake.
80 miles of the trip are on the Broad.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Gaffney; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Gaffney has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 27° in January. About 50 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 4 inches of snow.
On November 14 Gaffney normally reaches 64° and falls to 35°. The record high is 81°, in 1955; the record low 18°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.88 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Shelby 2 NW, 17 miles north-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
