The Louisville 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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3.86 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1871. The next wettest, 3.51 inches, fell in 1957.
Louisville’s center stands about 830 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 810 ft to 1,080 ft, a difference of 270 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Look Rock, about 2,660 ft, 14 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Lenoir Limestone, from the Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old.
The section below crosses 16 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 31×. 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 6 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 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. 10 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 Louisville reaches the Gulf of America by way of 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 Louisville; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Louisville has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 30° in January. About 52 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 5 inches of snow.
On November 14 Louisville normally reaches 60° and falls to 38°. The record high is 80°, in 1993; the record low 20°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 2.75 in, fell in 1915.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1871 from the Knoxville Area threaded record (Knoxville Airport, 4 miles east, 140 ft higher). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
