The Delano 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
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Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
80° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1962. Next is 78° in 1989.
Delano’s center stands about 800 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 720 ft to 2,420 ft, a difference of 1,700 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Sassafras Knob, about 3,340 ft, 14 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Conasauga Group, including Maynardville Limestone, Nolichucky Shale, the Maryville, Rogersville, and Rutledge Formations, Pumpkin Valley Shale, Rome Formation, and Shady Dolomite, from the Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old.
The section below crosses 11 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 9×. 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 to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Precambrian. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Precambrian. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Quartzite. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 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. 5 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 Delano reaches the Gulf of America by way of Siccowee Branch, the Hiwassee, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,560 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 Delano; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Delano has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 28° in January. About 60 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 4 inches of snow.
On November 14 Delano normally reaches 61° and falls to 36°. The record high is 76°, in 1989; the record low 18°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 0.76 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1962 at Athens, 12 miles north, 140 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
