The Columbia 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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4.90 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1957. The next wettest, 2.82 inches, fell in 2009.
Columbia’s center stands about 240 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 190 ft to 420 ft, a difference of 230 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Little Mountain Hill, about 580 ft, 8 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Columbia Pluton (granite), from the Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 54×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Biotite-gneiss. Age: Proterozoic, 542 to 2,500 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Proterozoic, 542 to 2,500 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metavolcanic. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Melange. Age: Neoproterozoic to Ordovician, 445 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 3 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 Columbia reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the James: about 160 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Columbia; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Columbia has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 24° in January. A normal year brings about 12 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 44 inches of water.
On November 14 Columbia normally reaches 58° and falls to 34°. The record high is 78°, in 1999; the record low 14°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.47 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1957 at Scottsville 6 SE, 13 miles west. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
