The La Follette 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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Sunny
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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.
La Follette’s center stands about 1,310 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,020 ft to 2,000 ft, a difference of 980 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is The Flag Pole, about 3,550 ft, 13 miles south-southwest.
The section below crosses 12 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.
Limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Chert. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. 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. 6 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 La Follette reaches the Gulf of America by way of Big 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 La Follette; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
La Follette 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 La Follette 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, 12 miles south-southeast, 200 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
