The Surgoinsville 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.
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy; warmer
Sunny
Partly cloudy
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
3.30 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1889. The next wettest, 3.01 inches, fell in 1935.
Surgoinsville’s center stands about 1,160 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,090 ft to 1,680 ft, a difference of 590 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Chimneytop Mountain, about 3,060 ft, 9 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Newala Formation, including Mascot Dolomite and Kingsport Formation (dolostone), from the Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old.
The section below crosses 19 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 13×. 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 8 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Claystone, siltstone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Dolostone, shale. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 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. 13 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 Surgoinsville reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Holston, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,770 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 Surgoinsville; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Surgoinsville has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 25° in January. A normal year brings about 6 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 49 inches of water.
On November 14 Surgoinsville normally reaches 59° and falls to 35°. The record high is 79°, in 1993; the record low 10°, in 1906. The most rain on this date, 0.76 in, fell in 1915.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1889 at Rogersville 1 NE, 8 miles west-southwest, 200 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
