The Ridgeway 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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87° on Nov. 17, 1958, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1896. Next is 85° in 1931.
Ridgeway’s center stands about 630 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 350 ft to 640 ft, a difference of 290 ft: rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Mylonite gneiss, from the Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 359 million years old.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 45×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Metavolcanic. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Mylonite. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 359 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metagranite, metadiorite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Diorite, gabbro. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 359 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 359 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 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. 1 smaller unit along the line are not listed.
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 Ridgeway reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Sawneys Creek, the Wateree, the Congaree, the Santee and the South Santee: about 230 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lib Pines Lake.
75 miles of the trip are on the Wateree.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Ridgeway; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Ridgeway has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 31° in January. About 45 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Ridgeway normally reaches 64° and falls to 39°. The record high is 85°, in 1931; the record low 24°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 2.00 in, fell in 1908.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1896 at Winnsboro, 8 miles west-northwest, 100 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
