The Pikeville 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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11° on Nov. 15, 1969, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1961. Next is 15° in 2019.
Pikeville’s center stands about 860 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 810 ft to 2,090 ft, a difference of 1,280 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Worthington Knob, about 2,540 ft, 10 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Wells Creek Formation and Knox Group (above Copper Ridge Dolomite) (limestone, dolostone), from the Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old.
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 14×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 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.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 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. 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 Pikeville reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Sequatchie, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,520 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 Pikeville; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Pikeville has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 30° in January. About 56 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 4 inches of snow.
On November 14 Pikeville normally reaches 61° and falls to 38°. The record high is 78°, in 1999; the record low 18°, in 2013. The most rain on this date, 1.04 in, fell in 2024.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1961 at Pikeville, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
