The Hilton Head Island 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.
Sunny
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
28° on Nov. 14, 1968, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1945. Next is 28° in 1969.
Hilton Head Island’s center stands about 40 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 80 ft, a difference of 80 ft: gently rolling country. Open water lies within three miles.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Chenier plain and deltas of Suwannee & Chattahoochie Rivers (unconsolidated), from the Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 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.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sand, clay. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Peat. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 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 Hilton Head Island reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Broad Creek: about 7 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Hilton Head Island; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Hilton Head Island has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 92° in July; winter nights fall to about 40° in January. About 45 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Hilton Head Island normally reaches 70° and falls to 48°. The record high is 82°, in 1993; the record low 28°, in 1968. The most rain on this date, 0.46 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1945 at Beaufort Mcas, 19 miles north. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
