The Sandy Level 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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5.40 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1930. The next wettest, 3.88 inches, fell in 2006.
Sandy Level’s center stands about 770 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 580 ft to 870 ft, a difference of 290 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Blue Knob, about 1,740 ft, 15 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Stuart Creek Gneiss (biotite-gneiss), from the Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old.
The section below crosses 13 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 26×. 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: Silurian, 429 to 430 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Norite. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, siltstone. Age: Triassic, 202 to 252 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone, conglomerate. Age: Triassic, 202 to 252 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. 7 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 Sandy Level reaches Albemarle Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Smith, the Dan and the Roanoke: about 300 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 Sandy Level; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Sandy Level has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 24° in January. A normal year brings about 9 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 47 inches of water.
On November 14 Sandy Level normally reaches 61° and falls to 32°. The record high is 79°, in 1999; the record low 16°, in 1976. The most rain on this date, 1.79 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1930 at Martinsville Filter Plant, 12 miles northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
