The Fincastle 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.
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy; warmer
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80° on Nov. 16, 1971, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1935. Next is 78° in 2020.
Fincastle’s center stands about 1,140 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,060 ft to 2,460 ft, a difference of 1,400 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Grissel Knob, about 3,190 ft, 15 miles west-southwest.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 11×. 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: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 2 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 Fincastle reaches the Gulf of America by way of Cedar Creek, the Clinch, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,670 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 Fincastle; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Fincastle has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 25° in January. About 58 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 3 inches of snow.
On November 14 Fincastle normally reaches 58° and falls to 34°. The record high is 75°, in 1964; the record low 17°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.10 in, fell in 2024.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1935 at Norris, 13 miles south. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
