The South Union 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.
Sunny
Sunny; warmer
Sunny
Sunny
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
4.96 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1896. The next wettest, 3.56 inches, fell in 1935.
South Union’s center stands about 900 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 650 ft to 960 ft, a difference of 310 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Wells Mountain, about 1,670 ft, 15 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Biotite-plagioclase-quartz gneiss and biotite-muscovite schist (biotite-gneiss, mica-schist), from the Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 49×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Hornblende-gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss, mica-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Silurian to Devonian, 359 to 445 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Schist, gneiss. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 1 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. 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. 2 smaller units 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 South Union reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Tugaloo and the Savannah: about 310 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of South Union; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
South Union has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 29° in January. About 61 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 2 inches of snow.
On November 14 South Union normally reaches 62° and falls to 37°. The record high is 82°, in 1999; the record low 19°, in 2013. The most rain on this date, 1.40 in, fell in 1961.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1896 at Walhalla, 14 miles north. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
