The Mountain City 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
81° on Nov. 12, 1958, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 80° in 2020.
Mountain City’s center stands about 2,170 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,940 ft to 3,610 ft, a difference of 1,670 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Yellow Bald, about 5,240 ft, 11 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Metagraywacke/ Mica Schist (metagraywacke, mica-schist), from the Precambrian to Paleozoic.
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 5×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Metagraywacke, mica-schist. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 9 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Schist. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 3 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Mesoproterozoic to Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,600 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 2 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.
Mountain City straddles the Eastern Continental Divide. Rain on the southwest side runs to the Atlantic Ocean; most of the rest goes to the Gulf of America.
From the center of town, a raindrop reaches the Gulf of America by way of Blacks Creek, the Little Tennessee, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,750 river miles. One that lands on the southwest side reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Stekoa Creek, the Chattooga, the Tugaloo and the Savannah: about 360 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 Mountain City; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Mountain City has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 30° in January. About 72 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 2 inches of snow.
On November 14 Mountain City normally reaches 61° and falls to 37°. The record high is 78°, in 1985; the record low 15°, in 1977. The most rain on this date, 2.85 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Clayton 1 SSW, 2 miles south-southwest, 200 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
