page_title: Mount Mitchell
section_title: Climate
hierarchical_section_title: Mount Mitchell / Environment / Climate
caption_attribution_description: English: Mount Mitchell Fall Foliage.
context_page_description: Mount Mitchell is the highest peak of the Appalachian Mountains and the highest peak in mainland eastern North America. It is located near Burnsville in Yancey County, North Carolina; in the Black Mountain subrange of the Appalachians, about 19 miles northeast of Asheville. It is protected by Mount Mitchell State Park and surrounded by the Pisgah National Forest. Mount Mitchell's elevation is 6,684 feet above sea level.
context_section_description: The summit area of Mount Mitchell is marked by a warm-summer humid continental climate (Köppen Dfb) bordering extremely close to a subalpine climate (köppen climate classification Dfc), with mild summers and long, moderately cold winters, being more similar to southeastern Canada than the southeastern U.S. The monthly daily average temperature ranges from 25.2 °F (−3.8 °C) in January to 59.1 °F (15.1 °C) in July. The coldest temperature ever recorded in the state occurred there on January 21, 1985 when it fell to  −34 °F (−37 °C), during a severe cold spell that brought freezing temperatures as far south as Miami. It is also the coldest average reporting station in the state at 43.8 °F (6.6 °C) (based on data collected from 1971 to 2000) which is well below any other station.
  Unlike the lower elevations in the surrounding regions, heavy snows often fall from December to March, with 50 inches (127 cm) accumulating in the Great Blizzard of 1993 and 33 inches (84 cm) in the January 2016 blizzard. Snow flurries have been reported on the summit even in the summer months of June, July, and August. Due to the high elevation, precipitation is heavy and reliable year-round, averaging 74.7 inches (1,900 mm) for the year, with no month receiving less than 5 in (127 mm) of average precipitation. The summit is often windy, with recorded gusts of up to 178 mph (286 km/h).
  Mount Mitchell had 139.94 inches of rain in 2018, a state record, which is also the highest yearly total rainfall recorded anywhere east of the Cascades in mainland US.
   
caption: Mount Mitchell Fall Foliage.
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