The Butler 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.
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy; cooler
Showers likely
69° on Nov. 16, 1934, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1885. Next is 68° in 1953.
Butler’s center stands about 1,460 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,430 ft to 1,570 ft, a difference of 140 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Toad Mountain, about 1,760 ft, 15 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Undifferentiated (conglomerate, sandstone, mudstone), from the Late Cretaceous, 72 to 100 million 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 41×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Conglomerate, sandstone, mudstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 100 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Metabasalt, greenstone. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Granitic. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Plutonic. Age: Archean. About 0.3 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.
Butler straddles the Laurentian Divide. Rain on the southwest side runs to Hudson Bay; most of the rest goes to the Gulf of America.
From the center of town, a raindrop reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Redeye, the Crow Wing and the Mississippi: about 2,060 river miles. One that lands on the southwest side reaches Hudson Bay by way of Big Pine Lake, the Otter Tail, the Red River of the North and the Nelson: about 1,310 river miles. Past the border it runs north through Canada to Hudson Bay.
Lake on the way: Lake Pepin.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Butler; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Butler has a dry-winter warm-summer continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about −3° in January. About 24 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Butler normally reaches 37° and falls to 20°. The record high is 64°, in 2025; the record low −12°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 1.22 in, fell in 1951.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1885 at Park Rapids Municipal Airport, 20 miles northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
