Geography and Climate
Greensboro is located at 36°4′48″N 79°49′10″W / 36.08°N 79.81944°W / 36.08; -79.81944 (36.079868, −79.819416).
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 109.2 square miles (283 km2), of which, 104.7 square miles (271 km2) of it is land and 4.5 square miles (12 km2) of it (4.16%) is water.
Greensboro is situated among the gently rolling hills of North Carolina's Piedmont and is situated midway between the state's Blue Ridge and Great Smoky mountains to the west and the Atlantic beaches and Outer Banks to the east. The view of the city from its highest building—the Lincoln Financial tower (commonly known as the Jefferson-Pilot Building)—reveals that the town is populated with large numbers of green trees, lending perhaps another dimension of significance to its name. The city is at the nexus of several major freeways, with Interstates 40, 85, and the planned I-73 passing through its borders.
Thunderstorms are common during the humid spring and summer months, some being severe in nature. On April, 2 1936, at around 7:00pm, a large, F-4 tornado cut a seven-mile (11 km) swath of destruction through southern Greensboro. 14 people were killed and 144 were injured as the tornado moved through the city, including part of downtown. The storm was part of an outbreak known as the 1936 Cordele-Greensboro tornado outbreak. Strong tornadoes have struck the Greensboro area since then, notably Stoneville, North Carolina on March 20, 1998, Clemmons, North Carolina and Winston-Salem, North Carolina on May 5, 1989 and Clemmons, North Carolina and Greensboro on May 7, 2008, High Point, March 28, 2010
| Climate data for Greensboro, North Carolina (Piedmont Triad Int'l), 1981–2010 normals | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Record high °F (°C) | 79 (26) |
81 (27) |
93 (34) |
95 (35) |
100 (38) |
104 (40) |
104 (40) |
103 (39) |
101 (38) |
95 (35) |
88 (31) |
78 (26) |
104 (40) |
| Average high °F (°C) | 48.1 (8.9) |
52.3 (11.3) |
60.7 (15.9) |
70.0 (21.1) |
77.3 (25.2) |
84.6 (29.2) |
87.7 (30.9) |
86.1 (30.1) |
79.5 (26.4) |
70.1 (21.2) |
60.6 (15.9) |
50.5 (10.3) |
68.96 (20.53) |
| Average low °F (°C) | 28.9 (−1.7) |
31.7 (−0.2) |
38.5 (3.6) |
46.7 (8.2) |
55.5 (13.1) |
64.7 (18.2) |
68.5 (20.3) |
67.3 (19.6) |
60.0 (15.6) |
48.2 (9.0) |
39.0 (3.9) |
31.4 (−0.3) |
48.37 (9.09) |
| Record low °F (°C) | −8 (−22) |
−4 (−20) |
5 (−15) |
20 (−7) |
32 (0) |
42 (6) |
48 (9) |
45 (7) |
35 (2) |
20 (−7) |
10 (−12) |
0 (−18) |
−8 (−22) |
| Precipitation inches (mm) | 3.06 (77.7) |
2.96 (75.2) |
3.72 (94.5) |
3.57 (90.7) |
3.38 (85.9) |
3.73 (94.7) |
4.48 (113.8) |
3.88 (98.6) |
4.19 (106.4) |
3.11 (79) |
3.11 (79) |
2.98 (75.7) |
42.17 (1,071.1) |
| Snowfall inches (cm) | 3.1 (7.9) |
2.5 (6.4) |
1.7 (4.3) |
0 (0) |
0 (0) |
0 (0) |
0 (0) |
0 (0) |
0 (0) |
0 (0) |
0.1 (0.3) |
1.2 (3) |
8.6 (21.8) |
| Avg. precipitation days (≥ 0.01 in) | 9.3 | 9.1 | 10.4 | 9.2 | 10.3 | 9.7 | 11.3 | 9.4 | 7.4 | 7.3 | 8.0 | 9.2 | 110.6 |
| Avg. snowy days (≥ 0.1 in) | 1.4 | 1.4 | 0.3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.1 | 0.7 | 3.9 |
| Mean monthly sunshine hours | 170.5 | 175.2 | 229.4 | 246.0 | 260.4 | 270.0 | 269.7 | 248.0 | 225.0 | 220.1 | 174.0 | 164.3 | 2,652.6 |
| Source #1: NOAA HKO (sun) | |||||||||||||
| Source #2: The Weather Channel (extremes) | |||||||||||||
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