The Bristol 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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12° on Nov. 13, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1969. Next is 13° in 2014.
Bristol’s center stands about 1,840 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,670 ft to 2,290 ft, a difference of 620 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Cross Mountain, about 4,290 ft, 12 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Elbrook Formation (dolostone, limestone), from the Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old.
The section below crosses 17 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 7×. 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 6 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, mudstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 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. 11 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 Bristol reaches the Gulf of America by way of Beaver Creek, 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 Bristol; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Bristol has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 24° in January. About 47 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Bristol normally reaches 58° and falls to 33°. The record high is 76°, in 1978; the record low 12°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 0.80 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1969 at Abingdon 3 S, 11 miles east-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
