South Carolina Geography & Climate

South Carolina is roughly triangular and rises steadily from the Atlantic to the mountains across about 250 miles.

The Lowcountry along the coast is flat, wet and barely above sea level — salt marsh, tidal creeks, cypress swamp and a chain of barrier islands, with the Grand Strand in the north running sixty miles of near-continuous beach.

Inland, the sandhills mark an ancient shoreline across the middle of the state, and the fall line runs with them — which is why the capital sits where it does.

The northwest Upstate climbs to the Blue Ridge escarpment, where the land rises sharply, the rainfall is the highest in the state and the waterfalls are concentrated. The high point is 3,560 feet.

South Carolina is humid subtropical and the summers are the thing to plan around — hot and heavy from June into September, with afternoon thunderstorms most days and little relief at night on the coast.

Winters are mild and short, rarely freezing on the coast, with occasional ice in the Upstate that closes roads because the state is not equipped for it.

Spring and autumn are long and genuinely lovely, and are when the state is at its best.

Hurricanes are a serious risk from August to October. Hugo in 1989 devastated the coast, and the flat Lowcountry is exposed to storm surge well inland. Charleston floods on high tides alone, increasingly often.