The Lunenburg 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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3.62 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1947. The next wettest, 3.20 inches, fell in 1979.
Lunenburg’s center stands about 480 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 380 ft to 580 ft, a difference of 200 ft: rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Interlayered Mafic and Felsic Volcanic Rocks (metavolcanic), from the Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 51×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Metavolcanic. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Phyllite, slate. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 359 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granitic. Age: Proterozoic, 542 to 2,500 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss, schist. Age: Proterozoic, 542 to 2,500 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mylonite, gneiss, cataclasite. Age: Proterozoic to Phanerozoic, less than 2,500 million years old. About 0.5 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 Lunenburg reaches Albemarle Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Couches Creek, the North Meherrin, the Meherrin and the Chowan: about 200 river miles.
140 miles of the trip are on the Meherrin.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Lunenburg; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Lunenburg has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 29° in January. A normal year brings about 5 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 46 inches of water.
On November 14 Lunenburg normally reaches 62° and falls to 38°. The record high is 78°, in 1989; the record low 18°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.70 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1947 at Chase City, 17 miles southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
