The Bryson 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.
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Mostly sunny; warmer
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9° on Nov. 17, 1997, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1958. Next is 10° in 1969.
Bryson City’s center stands about 1,740 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,730 ft to 3,550 ft, a difference of 1,820 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Kuwohi, about 6,650 ft, 10 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Biotite Granitic Gneiss, from the Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old.
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 4×. 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. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Mesoproterozoic to Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,600 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Graywacke. Age: Precambrian. About 2 mi of the line.
Slate. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Metagraywacke, metasiltstone. 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 Bryson City reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Tuckasegee, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,690 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 Bryson City; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Bryson City has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 26° in January. A normal year brings about 6 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 57 inches of water.
On November 14 Bryson City normally reaches 59° and falls to 33°. The record high is 78°, in 1989; the record low 11°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.18 in, fell in 1984.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1958 at Oconaluftee, 10 miles northeast, 300 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
