The Lafayette 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.
Lafayette’s center stands about 1,270 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,170 ft to 2,870 ft, a difference of 1,700 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Poor Mountain, about 3,930 ft, 4 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Elbrook Formation (dolostone, limestone), from the Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old.
The section below crosses 16 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 8×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Quartzite, conglomerate, sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, black-shale. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, limestone, shale. Age: Silurian to Devonian, 359 to 445 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 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. 10 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 Lafayette reaches Albemarle Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Roanoke: about 380 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Smith Mountain Lake and Roanoke Rapids Lake.
130 miles of the trip are on the Roanoke.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Lafayette; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Lafayette 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 Lafayette 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, 14 miles east-northeast, 130 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
