The China Grove 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.
Chance of showers
Showers likely
Mostly cloudy; cooler
Partly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy
23° on Nov. 14, 2018, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1885. Next is 26° in 1950.
China Grove’s center stands about 650 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 540 ft to 700 ft, a difference of 160 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Theis Hill, about 910 ft, 14 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Wilcox Group, undivided (mudstone), from the Late Paleocene to Early Eocene, 48 to 59 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 38×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Mudstone. Age: Late Paleocene to Early Eocene, 48 to 59 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Clay, siltstone-mudstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Clay, sand. Age: Paleocene to Eocene, 34 to 66 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone, carbonate. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 72 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.5 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 China Grove reaches the Gulf of America by way of Calaveras Creek, the San Antonio, the Guadalupe and the South Guadalupe: about 230 river miles.
Lake on the way: Calaveras Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of China Grove; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
China Grove has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 96° in August; winter nights fall to about 41° in January. About 32 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 China Grove normally reaches 72° and falls to 50°. The record high is 89°, in 1983; the record low 23°, in 2018. The most rain on this date, 1.59 in, fell in 1923.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1885 from the San Antonio Area threaded record (San Antonio International Airport, 13 miles northwest, 150 ft higher). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
