The Cosby 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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84° on Nov. 14, 1993, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1891. Next is 82° in 1958.
Cosby’s center stands about 1,350 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,240 ft to 2,470 ft, a difference of 1,230 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Guyot, about 6,610 ft, 8 miles south.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Shady Dolomite (dolostone, limestone), from the Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old.
The section below crosses 14 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 4×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Metagraywacke. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Siltstone. Age: Precambrian. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Precambrian. About 3 mi of the line.
Graywacke. Age: Precambrian. About 2 mi of the line.
Conglomerate. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 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. 8 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 Cosby reaches the Gulf of America by way of Indian Camp Creek, Cosby Creek, the Pigeon, the French Broad, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,750 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 Cosby; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Cosby has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 28° in January. About 47 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 3 inches of snow.
On November 14 Cosby normally reaches 62° and falls to 35°. The record high is 84°, in 1993; the record low 17°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.97 in, fell in 1915.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1891 at Newport 1 NW, 12 miles north-northeast, 310 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
