The Sewanee 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.
Sunny
Sunny; warmer
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Mostly sunny
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6.58 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1895. The next wettest, 3.61 inches, fell in 2006.
Sewanee’s center stands about 1,940 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,000 ft to 2,020 ft, a difference of 1,020 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is West Ramsey, about 2,140 ft, 10 miles east-northeast.
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 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.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 0.9 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 Sewanee reaches the Gulf of America by way of Crow Creek, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,450 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Guntersville Lake, White Lake (historical) and Pickwick 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 Sewanee; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Sewanee has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 29° in January. About 64 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Sewanee normally reaches 58° and falls to 40°. The record high is 74°, in 1931; the record low 17°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.92 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1895 at Sewanee, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
