The Blanchard 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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−14° on Nov. 16, 1955, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1909. Next is −10° in 1959.
Blanchard’s center stands about 2,290 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,250 ft to 3,800 ft, a difference of 1,550 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Spokane, about 5,870 ft, 9 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Missoula Flood deposits (gravel, sand, silt), from the Pleistocene, less than 20,000 years old.
The section below crosses 4 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.
Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene, less than 20,000 years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Argillite, siltstone. Age: Mesoproterozoic to Early Cambrian, 521 to 1,600 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Precambrian to Eocene. About 3 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.
Blanchard has a dry-summer warm-summer continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 23° in February. About 28 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Blanchard normally reaches 40° and falls to 29°. The record high is 55°, in 2001; the record low 1°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 1.18 in, fell in 1927.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1909 at Newport, 12 miles north-northwest, 130 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
