The Buchanan 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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4.37 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1912. The next wettest, 4.32 inches, fell in 2020.
Buchanan’s center stands about 860 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 810 ft to 2,650 ft, a difference of 1,840 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Apple Orchard Mountain, about 4,220 ft, 9 miles east.
The section below crosses 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 6×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Granulite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate, siltstone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Quartzite, conglomerate, sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 0.6 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 4 smaller units 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 Buchanan reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the James: about 300 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Buchanan; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Buchanan has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 29° in January. A normal year brings about 15 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 43 inches of water.
On November 14 Buchanan normally reaches 60° and falls to 38°. The record high is 82°, in 1993; the record low 13°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.68 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1912 from the Roanoke Area threaded record (Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport, 22 miles southwest, 280 ft higher). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
