The Unicoi 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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Mostly cloudy; warmer
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3.32 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1979. The next wettest, 2.81 inches, fell in 2009.
Unicoi’s center stands about 1,940 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,790 ft to 3,180 ft, a difference of 1,390 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Roan High Knob, about 6,280 ft, 14 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Rome Formation (shale), from the Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 6×. 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 7 mi of the line.
Age: Mesoproterozoic to Neoproterozoic, 965 to 1,003 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, arkose, conglomerate. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 700 to 712 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Quartzite. Age: Cambrian, 487 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. 3 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 Unicoi reaches the Gulf of America by way of Buffalo Creek, the Watauga, the South Fork Holston, the Holston, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,840 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 Unicoi; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Unicoi has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 24° in January. A normal year brings about 9 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 47 inches of water.
On November 14 Unicoi normally reaches 59° and falls to 32°. The record high is 73°, in 2005; the record low 15°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 0.40 in, fell in 1986.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1979 at Erwin 1 W, 6 miles southwest, 220 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
