The McDowell 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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71° on Nov. 11, 2006, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1994. Next is 71° in 2011.
McDowell’s center stands about 2,110 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,980 ft to 3,130 ft, a difference of 1,150 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Elleber Knob, about 4,580 ft, 14 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Millboro Shale and Needmore Formation (shale, black-shale), from the Devonian, 359 to 422 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.
Limestone. Age: Silurian to Devonian, 359 to 445 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Arenite, shale, sandstone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, black-shale. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 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. 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 McDowell reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Crab Run, the Bullpasture, the Cowpasture and the James: about 420 river miles.
340 miles of the trip are on the James.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of McDowell; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
McDowell has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 18° in January. A normal year brings about 39 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 47 inches of water.
On November 14 McDowell normally reaches 53° and falls to 28°. The record high is 71°, in 2011; the record low 13°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.84 in, fell in 2019.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1994 at Mustoe 1 SW, 9 miles west, 260 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
