The Sky Valley 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.
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny; warmer
Mostly sunny
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Sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
6.60 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1879. The next wettest, 4.92 inches, fell in 1927.
Sky Valley’s center stands about 3,150 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,110 ft to 4,260 ft, a difference of 2,150 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Yellow Bald, about 5,240 ft, 10 miles west-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 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 6×. 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 8 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Schist. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss, mica-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 2 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
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 Sky Valley reaches the Gulf of America by way of Mud Creek, the Little Tennessee, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,740 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 Sky Valley; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Sky Valley has a oceanic climate. Summer afternoons average 78° in July; winter nights fall to about 24° in January. A normal year brings about 10 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 88 inches of water.
On November 14 Sky Valley normally reaches 54° and falls to 32°. The record high is 73°, in 1931; the record low 12°, in 1920. The most rain on this date, 2.50 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1879 at Highlands, 9 miles east-northeast, 700 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
