The East Bernstadt 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.
3.53 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1954. The next wettest, 3.34 inches, fell in 1957.
East Bernstadt’s center stands about 1,200 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,050 ft to 1,350 ft, a difference of 300 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Cutoff Mountain, about 1,720 ft, 13 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Breathitt Formation, lower part (shale, siltstone), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 28×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 18 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 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 East Bernstadt reaches the Gulf of America by way of Gillis Branch, Wood Creek, the Little Rockcastle, the Rockcastle, the Cumberland, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,610 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Bards Lake, Lake Cumberland and Cordell Hull Reservoir.
970 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of East Bernstadt; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
East Bernstadt has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 27° in January. About 51 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 East Bernstadt normally reaches 58° and falls to 36°. The record high is 79°, in 1993; the record low 12°, in 1969. The most rain on this date, 1.51 in, fell in 2007.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1954 at London Corbin Airport, 7 miles south-southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.