The Charleston 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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3.78 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1892. The next wettest, 2.58 inches, fell in 1926.
Charleston’s center stands about 610 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 570 ft to 1,160 ft, a difference of 590 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Bee Mountain, about 1,740 ft, 11 miles south.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Quaternary Alluvium (fine-detrital, coarse-detrital), from the Quaternary, less than 2.6 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 19×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 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.
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 Charleston reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Kanawha, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,740 river miles.
970 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Charleston; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Charleston has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 26° in January. A normal year brings about 32 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 46 inches of water.
On November 14 Charleston normally reaches 58° and falls to 36°. The record high is 85°, in 1993; the record low 13°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.50 in, fell in 2024.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1892 from the Charleston Area threaded record (Charleston - West Virginia International Yeager Airport, 3 miles northeast, 300 ft higher). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
