The Richwood 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
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
80° on Nov. 15, 1993, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1967. Next is 75° in 1985.
Richwood’s center stands about 2,200 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,160 ft to 3,450 ft, a difference of 1,290 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Sugartree Bench Mountain, about 4,530 ft, 12 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows New River Formation (sandstone), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 8×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 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.
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 Richwood reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Cherry, the Gauley, the Kanawha, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,850 river miles.
Lake on the way: Summersville 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 Richwood; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Richwood has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 21° in January. About 50 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Richwood normally reaches 54° and falls to 32°. The record high is 74°, in 1989; the record low 9°, in 1976. The most rain on this date, 0.82 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1967 at Summersville Lake, 19 miles west, 430 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
