The Princeton 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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4.62 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1901. The next wettest, 4.05 inches, fell in 1957.
Princeton’s center stands about 760 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 580 ft to 800 ft, a difference of 220 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Little Knob, about 940 ft, 13 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Reedy River complex (gneiss), from the Paleozoic, 252 to 542 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 50×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gneiss. Age: Paleozoic, 252 to 542 million years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Mica-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Mica-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.5 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 Princeton reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Line Creek, the Saluda, the Congaree, the Santee and the South Santee: about 290 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lib Pines Lake and Lake Murray.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Princeton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Princeton has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 30° in January. About 47 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 1 inch of snow.
On November 14 Princeton normally reaches 64° and falls to 38°. The record high is 83°, in 1931; the record low 21°, in 1963. The most rain on this date, 1.24 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1901 at Laurens, 15 miles east, 170 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
