The Elk Park 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.
Partly cloudy
Mostly cloudy; warmer
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
4.70 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1907. The next wettest, 4.00 inches, fell in 1926.
Elk Park’s center stands about 3,190 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,830 ft to 5,190 ft, a difference of 2,360 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Roan High Knob, about 6,280 ft, 9 miles west-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Biotite Granitic Gneiss, from the Mesoproterozoic to Neoproterozoic, 950 to 1,250 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 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.
Granite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 700 to 712 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Age: Mesoproterozoic to Neoproterozoic, 965 to 1,003 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic to Neoproterozoic, 950 to 1,250 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metasandstone. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metadiabase, greenstone. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Metagraywacke. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. 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. 2 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.
A raindrop that lands in Elk Park reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Elk River, the Watauga, the South Fork Holston, the Holston, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,880 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 Elk Park; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Elk Park has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 77° in July; winter nights fall to about 22° in January. A normal year brings about 31 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 54 inches of water.
On November 14 Elk Park normally reaches 53° and falls to 31°. The record high is 73°, in 1994; the record low 7°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.72 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1907 at Banner Elk, 6 miles east, 540 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
