The Penhook 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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6.52 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1894. The next wettest, 4.10 inches, fell in 2009.
Penhook’s center stands about 990 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 740 ft to 1,380 ft, a difference of 640 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Smith Mountain, about 2,060 ft, 4 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alligator Back Formation - Feldspathic metagraywacke, from the Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old.
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 20×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Metagraywacke. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Mica-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Amphibolite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Phyllite, schist. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 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 Penhook reaches Albemarle Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Smith Mountain Lake and the Roanoke: about 320 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 Penhook; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Penhook has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 26° in January. A normal year brings about 13 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 49 inches of water.
On November 14 Penhook normally reaches 60° and falls to 34°. The record high is 82°, in 1955; the record low 12°, in 1920. The most rain on this date, 1.25 in, fell in 2008.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1894 at Rocky Mount, 15 miles west, 320 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
