The Van Wyck 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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18° on Nov. 15, 1969, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1899. Next is 20° in 1933.
Van Wyck’s center stands about 520 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 450 ft to 680 ft, a difference of 230 ft: rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Waxhaw metagranite, from the Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 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 58×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Metadacite, metarhyolite, metavolcanic. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Metagranite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Phyllonite, schist. Age: Paleozoic, 252 to 542 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Metagranite. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metagranite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Middle Cambrian, 520 to 650 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.9 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 Van Wyck reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Waxhaw Creek, the Catawba, the Wateree, the Congaree, the Santee and the South Santee: about 260 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lib Pines Lake.
90 miles of the trip are on the Wateree.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Van Wyck; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Van Wyck has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 32° in January. About 43 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Van Wyck normally reaches 64° and falls to 41°. The record high is 81°, in 1931; the record low 21°, in 2013. The most rain on this date, 1.33 in, fell in 1940.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1899 at Winthrop University, 12 miles west-northwest, 130 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
