The Waterloo 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.
Waterloo’s center stands about 640 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 430 ft to 660 ft, a difference of 230 ft: rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Granite, from the Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 359 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 59×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Biotite-gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic to Paleozoic, 252 to 1,000 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 359 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Mylonite. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 359 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 359 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Paleozoic, 252 to 542 million years old. About 2 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 Waterloo reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Cane Creek, the Saluda, the Congaree, the Santee and the South Santee: about 270 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lib Pines Lake and Lake Murray.
70 miles of the trip are on the Santee.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Waterloo; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Waterloo 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 Waterloo 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, 10 miles north-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
