The Charlotte 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.
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
Mostly cloudy; cooler
Partly cloudy
Mostly cloudy; warmer
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy
98° on Nov. 16, 1986, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1941. Next is 98° in 2010.
Charlotte’s center stands about 550 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 450 ft to 570 ft, a difference of 120 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Cook Mountain Formation (claystone, sandstone), from the Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 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.
Claystone, sandstone. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Claystone, sandstone. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Siltstone, sandstone. Age: Middle Eocene, 38 to 48 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 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.
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 Charlotte reaches Corpus Christi Bay and the Gulf of America by way of Lagunillas Creek, San Miguel Creek, the Frio and the Nueces: about 170 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Horseshoe Tank and Lake Corpus Christi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Charlotte; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Charlotte has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 98° in August; winter nights fall to about 41° in January. About 28 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Charlotte normally reaches 75° and falls to 50°. The record high is 91°, in 1983; the record low 30°, in 1975. The most rain on this date, 1.00 in, fell in 1959.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1941 at Poteet, 14 miles northeast, 120 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
