The Helenwood 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
Mostly sunny; warmer
Mostly sunny
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
79° on Nov. 12, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1952. Next is 75° in 1971.
Helenwood’s center stands about 1,390 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,170 ft to 1,670 ft, a difference of 500 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Adkins Mountain, about 3,100 ft, 15 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Crooked Fork Group, including Wartburg Sandstone, Glenmary Shale, Coalfield Sandstone, Burnt Mill Shale, Crossville Sandstone, Dorton Shale (sandstone, shale), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old.
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 10×. 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, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 0.9 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 Helenwood reaches the Gulf of America by way of West Branch Phillips Creek, Phillips Creek, the New River, the Big South Fork Cumberland, the Cumberland, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,630 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Bards Lake, Lake Cumberland and Cordell Hull Reservoir.
970 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Helenwood; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Helenwood has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 24° in January. A normal year brings about 6 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 58 inches of water.
On November 14 Helenwood normally reaches 58° and falls to 32°. The record high is 75°, in 1971; the record low 11°, in 1976. The most rain on this date, 1.76 in, fell in 2008.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1952 at Oneida, 5 miles north. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
