The Phenix 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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4.20 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1950. The next wettest, 3.73 inches, fell in 2020.
Phenix’s center stands about 500 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 380 ft to 620 ft, a difference of 240 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Lyle Mountain, about 780 ft, 9 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Interlayered Mafic and Felsic Metavolcanic Rocks - Amphibolite, hornblende-biotite gneiss, and schist (amphibolite, biotite-gneiss, schist), from the Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 46×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gneiss. Age: Proterozoic, 542 to 2,500 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Amphibolite, biotite-gneiss, schist. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metavolcanic. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mylonite, gneiss, cataclasite. Age: Proterozoic to Phanerozoic, less than 2,500 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Metagraywacke, mica-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 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. 1 smaller unit 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 Phenix reaches Albemarle Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Cub Creek and the Roanoke: about 250 river miles.
Lake on the way: 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 Phenix; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Phenix has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 24° in January. A normal year brings about 7 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 46 inches of water.
On November 14 Phenix normally reaches 60° and falls to 32°. The record high is 79°, in 1985; the record low 17°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 2.10 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1950 at Brookneal, 11 miles west. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
