The Hiawassee 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.
Sunny
Sunny; warmer
Mostly sunny
Sunny
Sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
4.72 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1892. The next wettest, 3.99 inches, fell in 2006.
Hiawassee’s center stands about 1,970 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,920 ft to 3,060 ft, a difference of 1,140 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Signal Bald, about 5,280 ft, 14 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Biotite Gneiss (biotite-gneiss), from the Precambrian to Paleozoic.
The section below crosses 7 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.
Biotite-gneiss. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 13 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Mesoproterozoic to Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,600 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Metasandstone, metagraywacke, metasiltstone. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Slate, metasiltstone. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Biotite-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Biotite-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 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. 1 smaller unit 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 Hiawassee reaches the Gulf of America by way of Chatuge Lake, the Hiwassee, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,650 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Guntersville Lake, White Lake (historical), Pickwick Lake and Cummings 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 Hiawassee; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Hiawassee has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 25° in January. About 60 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 3 inches of snow.
On November 14 Hiawassee normally reaches 61° and falls to 33°. The record high is 78°, in 1931; the record low 15°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 2.21 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1892 at Blairsville Experiment Sta, 12 miles west-southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
