The Bon Air 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
Mostly sunny; warmer
Sunny
Sunny
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
5° on Nov. 15, 1969, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1912. Next is 8° in 1916.
Bon Air’s center stands about 1,860 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 910 ft to 1,920 ft, a difference of 1,010 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pilot Knob, about 2,080 ft, 13 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Crab Orchard Mountains Group, including Rockcastle Conglomerate, Vandever Formation, Newton Sandstone, Whitwell Shale, and Sewanee Conglomerate, from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 16×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 1 smaller unit 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 Bon Air reaches the Gulf of America by way of Blue Spring Creek, the Calfkiller, the Caney Fork, the Cumberland, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,450 river miles.
Lake on the way: Bards 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 Bon Air; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Bon Air has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 25° in January. A normal year brings about 14 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 63 inches of water.
On November 14 Bon Air normally reaches 54° and falls to 35°. The record high is 74°, in 1958; the record low 12°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.90 in, fell in 1915.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1912 at Crossville Experiment Station, 14 miles east-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
