The The Cliffs Valley 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
4.76 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1917. The next wettest, 4.34 inches, fell in 2020.
The Cliffs Valley’s center stands about 1,450 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,060 ft to 2,730 ft, a difference of 1,670 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Rich Mountain, about 3,770 ft, 14 miles west.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Migmatitic granitoid gneiss, from the Ordovician, 445 to 487 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 7×. 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: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Mica-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Silurian, 438 to 439 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Early Cambrian, 524 to 525 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Early Devonian, 409 to 410 million years old. About 0.7 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 The Cliffs Valley reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the North Saluda, the Saluda, the Congaree, the Santee and the South Santee: about 350 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lib Pines Lake and Lake Murray.
110 miles of the trip are on the Saluda.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of The Cliffs Valley; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
The Cliffs Valley has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 32° in January. About 64 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 5 inches of snow.
On November 14 The Cliffs Valley normally reaches 61° and falls to 41°. The record high is 83°, in 1999; the record low 19°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.81 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1917 at Tryon, 11 miles east-northeast, 130 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
