The Whitesboro 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.
15° on Nov. 15, 1969, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1949. Next is 16° in 2019.
Whitesboro’s center stands about 1,060 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 690 ft to 1,120 ft, a difference of 430 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Aurora Mountain, about 1,400 ft, 7 miles west.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Pottsville Formation (sandstone, conglomerate), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 24×. 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, conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 18 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 0.5 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 3 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 Whitesboro reaches the Gulf of America by way of Jacob Creek, Owens Creek, Short Creek, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,400 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Guntersville Lake, White Lake (historical) and Pickwick 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 Whitesboro; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Whitesboro has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 30° in January. About 57 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 1 inch of snow.
On November 14 Whitesboro normally reaches 61° and falls to 39°. The record high is 82°, in 1955; the record low 19°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 2.68 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1949 at Sand Mount Substation, 10 miles northeast, 130 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.