The Pelham 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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20° on Nov. 13, 2013, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1985. Next is 20° in 2019.
Pelham’s center stands about 1,020 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 980 ft to 1,770 ft, a difference of 790 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is West Ramsey, about 2,140 ft, 7 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Monteagle Limestone, from the Carboniferous, 324 to 359 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 16×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 1 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 Pelham reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Elk River, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,480 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Guntersville Lake, White Lake (historical), Pickwick Lake and Woods Reservoir.
970 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Pelham; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Pelham has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 30° in January. About 58 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 4 inches of snow.
On November 14 Pelham normally reaches 61° and falls to 38°. The record high is 78°, in 1999; the record low 21°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 1.58 in, fell in 2005.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1985 at Winchester 5 SE, 13 miles southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
