The Pigeon Forge 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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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.
Pigeon Forge’s center stands about 1,020 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 950 ft to 1,700 ft, a difference of 750 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Le Conte, about 6,580 ft, 11 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Walden Creek Group, including Sandsuck Formation, Wilhite Formation, Shields Formation, and Licklog Formation (shale), from the Precambrian.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 5×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Siltstone. Age: Precambrian. About 5 mi of the line.
Graywacke. Age: Precambrian. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Precambrian. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Precambrian. About 0.4 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
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 Pigeon Forge reaches the Gulf of America by way of the West Prong Little Pigeon, the Little Pigeon, the French Broad, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,700 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 Pigeon Forge; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Pigeon Forge 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 Pigeon Forge 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, 7 miles south, 430 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
