The Rockham 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.
Mostly sunny
Sunny; warmer
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy; cooler
Showers likely
−16° on Nov. 14, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is −15° in 1959.
Rockham’s center stands about 1,390 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,350 ft to 1,400 ft, a difference of 50 ft: nearly flat ground.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Pierre Shale (shale, bentonite), from the Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old.
The section below crosses 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 64×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale, bentonite. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 23 mi of the line.
Chalk, marlstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 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.
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.
Rockham has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 4° in January. A normal year brings about 44 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 22 inches of water.
On November 14 Rockham normally reaches 43° and falls to 21°. The record high is 70°, in 2016; the record low −16°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.61 in, fell in 1928.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Faulkton, 17 miles west-northwest, 190 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
