The Biddle 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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−16° on Nov. 13, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1963. Next is −15° in 1986.
Biddle’s center stands about 3,330 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,240 ft to 3,560 ft, a difference of 320 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Bear Skull Mountain, about 4,260 ft, 6 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Tullock Member of Fort Union Formation (sandstone), from the Early Paleocene, 62 to 66 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 22×. 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, shale, bentonite. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 84 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Early Paleocene to Middle Paleocene, 59 to 66 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Early Paleocene, 62 to 66 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, bentonite. Age: Early Paleocene, 62 to 66 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.
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 Biddle reaches the Gulf of America by way of Bobcat Creek, the Little Powder, the Powder River, the Yellowstone, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,090 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Oahe, Lake Sakakawea, Lake Sharpe and Lake Francis Case.
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 Biddle; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Biddle has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 13° in January. A normal year brings about 35 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 15 inches of water.
On November 14 Biddle normally reaches 49° and falls to 23°. The record high is 75°, in 1999; the record low −7°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 1.59 in, fell in 1964.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1963 at Biddle 8 SW, 8 miles west-southwest, 300 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
