The Graniteville 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.
4.23 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1893. The next wettest, 3.75 inches, fell in 1992.
Graniteville’s center stands about 220 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 180 ft to 530 ft, a difference of 350 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Poverty Hill, about 430 ft, 12 miles west.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Black Creek/Cusseta/Blufftown Formations (sand), from the Cretaceous, 66 to 145 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 42×. 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. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Clay, sand. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 72 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.4 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 0.4 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 Graniteville reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Horse Creek and the Savannah: about 210 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Graniteville; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Graniteville has a cold desert climate. Summer afternoons average 94° in July; winter nights fall to about 32° in January. Barely 0.0 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Graniteville normally reaches 67° and falls to 41°. The record high is 84°, in 1993; the record low 20°, in 1987. The most rain on this date, 1.10 in, fell in 1983.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 from the Aiken Area threaded record (Aiken 2 E, 7 miles east, 290 ft higher). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.