The Fairlea 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
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Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
78° on Nov. 13, 1911, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1852. Next is 78° in 1993.
Fairlea’s center stands about 2,170 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,660 ft to 2,280 ft, a difference of 620 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Huggins Knob, about 3,960 ft, 14 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Greenbrier Group (limestone, shale), from the Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 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.
Limestone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, chert. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Siltstone, sandstone. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 2 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 Fairlea reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Greenbrier, the New River, the Kanawha, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,880 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 Fairlea; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Fairlea has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 20° in January. A normal year brings about 30 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 42 inches of water.
On November 14 Fairlea normally reaches 53° and falls to 29°. The record high is 78°, in 1993; the record low 7°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.14 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1852 at Lewisburg 3 N, 6 miles north-northeast, 130 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
