The Glenville 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.
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.
Glenville’s center stands about 3,640 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,100 ft to 4,530 ft, a difference of 1,430 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Hardy, about 6,120 ft, 15 miles northeast.
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 8×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Biotite-gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Granodiorite, quartz-diorite. Age: Middle Devonian, 390 to 391 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Mesoproterozoic to Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,600 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Gneiss, mica-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 1.0 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 Glenville reaches the Gulf of America by way of Hurricane Creek, the West Fork Tuckasegee, the Tuckasegee, 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 Glenville; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Glenville 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 Glenville 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 south-southwest, 210 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.