The Bozeman 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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75° on Nov. 12, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1880. Next is 72° in 1990.
Bozeman’s center stands about 4,820 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,650 ft to 5,380 ft, a difference of 730 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Palisade Mountain, about 9,330 ft, 15 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Upper Tertiary sediment or sedimentary rock (conglomerate, sandstone, siltstone), from the Early Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 20 million years old.
The section below crosses 10 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.
Conglomerate, sandstone, siltstone. Age: Early Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 20 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Archean. About 5 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Age: Late Miocene to Holocene, less than 7.2 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. 4 smaller units along the line are not listed.
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 Bozeman reaches the Gulf of America by way of the East Gallatin, the Gallatin, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,520 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Oahe, Lake Sakakawea, Lake Fort Peck and Lake Sharpe.
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 Bozeman; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Bozeman has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 15° in January. A normal year brings about 91 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 20 inches of water.
On November 14 Bozeman normally reaches 43° and falls to 23°. The record high is 68°, in 1999; the record low −10°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 1.04 in, fell in 1996.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1892 at Bozeman Montana State University, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
