The Murrells Inlet 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.
4.24 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1957. The next wettest, 3.58 inches, fell in 2009.
Murrells Inlet’s center stands about 20 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 70 ft, a difference of 70 ft: gently rolling country. Open water lies within three miles.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Socastee Formation (sand, clay), from the Quaternary, 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.
Sand, clay. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 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 Murrells Inlet reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Collins Creek and the Waccamaw: about 20 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Murrells Inlet; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Murrells Inlet has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 37° in January. About 55 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Murrells Inlet normally reaches 67° and falls to 45°. The record high is 81°, in 1993; the record low 25°, in 1977. The most rain on this date, 1.43 in, fell in 2016.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1957 at Brookgreen Gardens, 4 miles west-southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.