The Murphy 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.
Sunny
Sunny; warmer
Sunny
Sunny
Sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
9° on Nov. 15, 1969, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1872. Next is 15° in 2019.
Murphy’s center stands about 1,600 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,490 ft to 2,360 ft, a difference of 870 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Big Junction, about 5,370 ft, 15 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Mineral Bluff Formation (mica-schist, phyllite), from the Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old.
The section below crosses 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 7×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Metasandstone, metagraywacke, metasiltstone. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Mica-schist, phyllite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Biotite-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Slate, metasiltstone. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Slate. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Biotite-schist. 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. 4 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 Murphy reaches the Gulf of America by way of Apalachia Lake, the Hiwassee, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,610 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 Murphy; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Murphy has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 25° in January. About 59 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 4 inches of snow.
On November 14 Murphy normally reaches 62° and falls to 33°. The record high is 79°, in 1964; the record low 15°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.07 in, fell in 1929.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1872 at Murphy 4 ESE, 4 miles east-southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
