The Orme 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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Mostly sunny; warmer
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11° on Nov. 15, 1969, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1896. Next is 16° in 2019.
Orme’s center stands about 1,010 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 650 ft to 1,850 ft, a difference of 1,200 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Red Hill, about 1,990 ft, 8 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Bangor Limestone and Hartselle Formation, from the Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old.
The section below crosses 12 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 14×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 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. 6 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 Orme reaches the Gulf of America by way of Dry Creek, Widows Creek, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,440 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Guntersville Lake, White Lake (historical) and Pickwick Lake.
970 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Orme; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Orme has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 29° in January. About 60 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Orme normally reaches 61° and falls to 38°. The record high is 79°, in 1964; the record low 21°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 2.03 in, fell in 1929.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1896 at Bridgeport 5 NW, 2 miles south, 340 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
