The Rural Retreat 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.
Partly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
78° on Nov. 15, 1993, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 76° in 1955.
Rural Retreat’s center stands about 2,530 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,380 ft to 2,720 ft, a difference of 340 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Straight Mountain, about 4,210 ft, 13 miles south-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Elbrook Formation (dolostone, limestone), from the Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old.
The section below crosses 15 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 11×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, mudstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, quartzite. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 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. 9 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 Rural Retreat reaches the Gulf of America by way of Mill Creek, Reed Creek, the New River, the Kanawha, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 2,000 river miles.
Lake on the way: Claytor Lake.
970 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Rural Retreat; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Rural Retreat has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 23° in January. A normal year brings about 18 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 42 inches of water.
On November 14 Rural Retreat normally reaches 56° and falls to 31°. The record high is 74°, in 1989; the record low 7°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.80 in, fell in 1945.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Wytheville, 12 miles east-northeast, 440 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
