The Covington 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
Mostly cloudy
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
3.72 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1960. The next wettest, 1.99 inches, fell in 2022.
Covington’s center stands about 1,240 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,190 ft to 2,940 ft, a difference of 1,750 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Bald Knob, about 4,240 ft, 12 miles northeast.
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 7×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Arenite, shale, sandstone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Shale, black-shale. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Silurian to Devonian, 359 to 445 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.
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 Covington reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Jackson and the James: about 360 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Covington; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Covington has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 23° in January. A normal year brings about 10 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 40 inches of water.
On November 14 Covington normally reaches 56° and falls to 31°. The record high is 84°, in 1993; the record low 13°, in 1996. The most rain on this date, 1.26 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1960 at Covington Filter Plant, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
