The Galax 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
Sunny
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
5.63 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1907. The next wettest, 3.04 inches, fell in 2022.
Galax’s center stands about 2,380 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,300 ft to 2,850 ft, a difference of 550 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Point Lookout Mountain, about 4,530 ft, 14 miles west.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Ashe Formation - Biotite gneiss (biotite-gneiss), from the Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 9×. 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: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Metagraywacke. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Quartz-monzonite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion 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. 2 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 Galax reaches the Gulf of America by way of Chestnut Creek, the New River, the Kanawha, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,990 river miles.
Lake on the way: Claytor Lake.
970 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Galax; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Galax has a oceanic climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 24° in January. About 51 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Galax normally reaches 56° and falls to 32°. The record high is 67°, in 2005; the record low 15°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 0.59 in, fell in 2008.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1907 at Galax Water Plant, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
