The Butler 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
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
3.00 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1956. The next wettest, 1.78 inches, fell in 2002.
Butler’s center stands about 2,100 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,950 ft to 3,800 ft, a difference of 1,850 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Beech Mountain, about 5,460 ft, 15 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Rome Formation (shale), from the Cambrian, 487 to 542 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.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Quartzite. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, arkose, conglomerate. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1.2 to 1.2 billion 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 Butler reaches the Gulf of America by way of Watauga Lake, the Watauga, the South Fork Holston, the Holston, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,860 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 Butler; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Butler has a oceanic climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 23° in January. A normal year brings about 12 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 47 inches of water.
On November 14 Butler normally reaches 58° and falls to 31°. The record high is 78°, in 1989; the record low 8°, in 1968. The most rain on this date, 0.77 in, fell in 1996.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1956 at Mountain City 2, 15 miles east-northeast, 320 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
