The Tusculum 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
Sunny
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
10° on Nov. 15, 1969, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1890. Next is 11° in 1940.
Tusculum’s center stands about 1,480 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,290 ft to 1,770 ft, a difference of 480 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Green Ridge Knob, about 4,840 ft, 12 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Knox Group, including Jonesboro Limestone, Newala Formation, Mascot Dolomite, Kingsport Formation, Longview Dolomite, Chepultepec Dolomite, Copper Ridge Dolomite, Conococheague Limestone (limestone, dolostone), from the Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old.
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 5×. 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: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sandstone, arkose, conglomerate. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Quartzite. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 1.0 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 0.7 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 Tusculum reaches the Gulf of America by way of Moon Creek, the Nolichucky, the French Broad, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,790 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 Tusculum; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Tusculum has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 25° in January. A normal year brings about 8 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 46 inches of water.
On November 14 Tusculum normally reaches 60° and falls to 33°. The record high is 76°, in 1989; the record low 15°, in 2013. The most rain on this date, 0.57 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1890 at Greeneville Experiment Sta, 7 miles southwest, 160 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
