The North Charleston 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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86° on Nov. 11, 1946, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1937. Next is 85° in 1958.
North Charleston’s center stands about 60 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 80 ft, a difference of 80 ft: gently rolling country.
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 5 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 10 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sand, clay. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Limestone, sand. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Peat. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million 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 North Charleston reaches Charleston Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Popperdam Creek and the Ashley: about 18 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of North Charleston; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
North Charleston has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 39° in January. About 52 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 North Charleston normally reaches 70° and falls to 47°. The record high is 82°, in 1993; the record low 27°, in 1981. The most rain on this date, 0.57 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1937 from the Charleston Area threaded record (Charleston Intl. Airport, here). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
