The Powell 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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17° on Nov. 15, 1969, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1947. Next is 19° in 1974.
Powell’s center stands about 1,070 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 820 ft to 1,330 ft, a difference of 510 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Militia Hill, about 1,880 ft, 15 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Unnamed (upper part of Knox Group), including Newala Formation, Mascot Dolomite, Kingsport Formation, Longview Dolomite, and Chepultepec Dolomite (dolostone, limestone), from the Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 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.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 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. 2 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 Powell reaches the Gulf of America by way of Beaver Creek, the Clinch, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,640 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 Powell; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Powell has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 30° in January. About 56 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Powell normally reaches 61° and falls to 38°. The record high is 78°, in 1999; the record low 20°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.40 in, fell in 2024.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1947 from the Oak Ridge Area threaded record (Oak Ridge Asos, 11 miles west, 170 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
