The Ovid 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.
Mostly cloudy
Partly cloudy; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
−9° on Nov. 13, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1952. Next is −5° in 1986.
Ovid’s center stands about 3,530 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,500 ft to 3,760 ft, a difference of 260 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Marks Butte, about 4,060 ft, 12 miles south-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Gravels and alluviums (gravel, unconsolidated), from the Pleistocene, less than 0.5 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 39×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 23 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Siltstone-mudstone, conglomerate-sandstone. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sand, silt. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gravel, unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone, claystone. Age: Oligocene, 23 to 34 million years old. About 0.8 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 Ovid reaches the Gulf of America by way of the South Platte, the Platte, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,180 river miles.
1,170 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Ovid; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Ovid has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 15° in January. A normal year brings about 31 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 18 inches of water.
On November 14 Ovid normally reaches 51° and falls to 25°. The record high is 77°, in 1990; the record low −7°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.14 in, fell in 1980.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1952 at Sedgwick 5 S, 9 miles southwest, 470 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
