The Gatlinburg 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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Mostly sunny; warmer
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3.89 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1921. The next wettest, 2.74 inches, fell in 1957.
Gatlinburg’s center stands about 1,320 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,270 ft to 2,870 ft, a difference of 1,600 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Kuwohi, about 6,650 ft, 10 miles south.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 3×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Siltstone. Age: Precambrian. About 6 mi of the line.
Graywacke. Age: Precambrian. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Precambrian. About 5 mi of the line.
Metagraywacke. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Precambrian. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 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. 1 smaller unit 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 Gatlinburg reaches the Gulf of America by way of Dudley Creek, the West Prong Little Pigeon, the Little Pigeon, the French Broad, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,710 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 Gatlinburg; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Gatlinburg has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 26° in January. A normal year brings about 8 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 58 inches of water.
On November 14 Gatlinburg normally reaches 59° and falls to 34°. The record high is 79°, in 1989; the record low 16°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 2.26 in, fell in 1945.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1921 at Gatlinburg 2 SW, 2 miles southwest, 130 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
