The South Padre Island 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
Chance of showers
Chance of showers; cooler
Chance of showers
Mostly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
4.10 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1896. The next wettest, 3.78 inches, fell in 1986.
South Padre Island’s center stands about 11 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 20 ft, a difference of 20 ft: nearly flat ground. Open water lies within three miles.
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.
Sand, fine-detrital. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Silt, sand. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 1.0 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 0.6 mi of the line.
Silt, sand. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 0.5 mi of the line.
Silt, clay. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 0.4 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.
South Padre Island has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 92° in August; winter nights fall to about 52° in January. About 29 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 South Padre Island normally reaches 78° and falls to 61°. The record high is 87°, in 2006; the record low 37°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.50 in, fell in 1943.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1896 at Port Isabel, 9 miles west. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
