The Rivanna 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.
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy; warmer
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
3.57 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1893. The next wettest, 3.37 inches, fell in 1927.
Rivanna’s center stands about 380 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 270 ft to 740 ft, a difference of 470 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Peters Mountain, about 1,800 ft, 10 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Candler Formation - Phyllite and schist (phyllite, schist), from the Cambrian, 487 to 542 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 18×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Metabasalt. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Phyllite, schist. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Metagraywacke, mica-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Mylonite, gneiss, cataclasite. Age: Proterozoic to Phanerozoic, less than 2,500 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Metasiltstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 0.4 mi of the line.
Metabasalt. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.3 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 Rivanna reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Carroll Creek, the Rivanna and the James: about 190 river miles.
160 miles of the trip are on the James.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Rivanna; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Rivanna has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 29° in January. About 42 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Rivanna normally reaches 60° and falls to 39°. The record high is 81°, in 1955; the record low 17°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 2.23 in, fell in 1940.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 from the Charlottesville Area threaded record (Charlottesville Albemarle Airport, 11 miles north-northwest, 250 ft higher). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
