The Marion 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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3.28 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1948. The next wettest, 2.14 inches, fell in 2008.
Marion’s center stands about 90 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 50 ft to 130 ft, a difference of 80 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Bear Bluff Formation (sand, limestone), from the Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 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, limestone. Age: Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Sand, clay. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Limestone, sand. Age: Pleistocene, 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 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 Marion reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Catfish Creek, the Great Pee Dee, Schooner Creek and the Waccamaw: about 95 river miles.
65 miles of the trip are on the Great Pee Dee.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Marion; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Marion has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 92° in July; winter nights fall to about 36° in January. About 45 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Marion normally reaches 67° and falls to 44°. The record high is 84°, in 1993; the record low 22°, in 2013. The most rain on this date, 1.14 in, fell in 2008.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Florence Regional Airport, 19 miles west. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
