The Plainview 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
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
80° on Nov. 16, 1971, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1935. Next is 78° in 2020.
Plainview’s center stands about 1,130 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,010 ft to 1,600 ft, a difference of 590 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Donehew Head, about 2,180 ft, 6 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Middle and Lower parts of Chickamauga Group, including Moccassin Formation, Bays Formation, Sevier Shale, Ottosee Shale, Holston Formation, Lenoir Limestone, and Athens Shale (shale, limestone), from the Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old.
The section below crosses 11 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 15×. 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: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 5 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 Plainview reaches the Gulf of America by way of Little Branch, Flat Creek, the Holston, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,690 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 Plainview; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Plainview 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 Plainview 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, 15 miles west. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
