The Fairfield Glade 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.
75° on Nov. 17, 2016, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1954. Next is 74° in 1955.
Fairfield Glade’s center stands about 2,080 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,590 ft to 2,080 ft, a difference of 490 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Dorton Knob, about 3,000 ft, 15 miles south-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Rockcastle Conglomerate (sandstone, conglomerate), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 14×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 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.
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 Fairfield Glade reaches the Gulf of America by way of Daddys Creek, the Obed, the Emory, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,630 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 Fairfield Glade; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Fairfield Glade has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 26° in January. About 58 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Fairfield Glade normally reaches 57° and falls to 36°. The record high is 73°, in 1994; the record low 12°, in 1969. The most rain on this date, 1.20 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1954 at Crossville Memorial Airport, 11 miles west-southwest, 220 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.