The Highlands 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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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.
Highlands’s center stands about 3,840 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,640 ft to 4,270 ft, a difference of 1,630 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Yellow Mountain, about 5,110 ft, 6 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Ashe Metamorphic Suite and Tallulah Falls Formation; Biotite gneiss (biotite-gneiss), from the Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 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.
Biotite-gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Metagraywacke, mica-schist. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 5 mi of the line.
Granodiorite, quartz-diorite. Age: Middle Devonian, 390 to 391 million years old. About 4 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 2 mi of the line.
Amphibolite. 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. 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.
Highlands straddles the Eastern Continental Divide. Rain on the southeast side runs to the Atlantic Ocean; most of the rest goes to the Gulf of America.
From the center of town, a raindrop reaches the Gulf of America by way of Mill Creek, the Cullasaja, the Little Tennessee, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,740 river miles. One that lands on the southeast side reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Big Creek, the West Fork Chattooga, the Chattooga, the Tugaloo and the Savannah: about 380 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 Highlands; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Highlands 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 Highlands 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, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
