The Grapeland 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; cooler
Chance of showers; warmer
Partly cloudy; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
5.34 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1904. The next wettest, 4.38 inches, fell in 1907.
Grapeland’s center stands about 480 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 360 ft to 530 ft, a difference of 170 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Camp Hill, about 660 ft, 14 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Sparta Sand (sandstone), from the Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 63×. 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: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 20 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Middle Eocene, 38 to 48 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 0.3 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 Grapeland reaches the Gulf of America by way of Bennett Creek, San Pedro Creek and the Neches: about 320 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Sabine Lake and B A Steinhagen Lake.
140 miles of the trip are on the Neches.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Grapeland; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Grapeland has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 95° in August; winter nights fall to about 36° in January. About 47 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Grapeland normally reaches 69° and falls to 45°. The record high is 89°, in 1955; the record low 22°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 2.65 in, fell in 1927.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1904 at Crockett, 13 miles south, 130 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
