The Busby 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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82° on Nov. 12, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1907. Next is 75° in 1934.
Busby’s center stands about 3,430 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,360 ft to 3,860 ft, a difference of 500 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Busby Butte, about 4,520 ft, 5 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Tongue River Member of Fort Union Formation (sandstone, shale), from the Early Paleocene to Middle Paleocene, 59 to 66 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 13×. 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. Age: Early Paleocene to Middle Paleocene, 59 to 66 million years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, bentonite. Age: Early Paleocene, 62 to 66 million years old. About 2 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 Busby reaches the Gulf of America by way of Rosebud Creek, the Yellowstone, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,120 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 Busby; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Busby has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 8° in January. A normal year brings about 52 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 16 inches of water.
On November 14 Busby normally reaches 47° and falls to 19°. The record high is 74°, in 1999; the record low −29°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.52 in, fell in 1991.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1907 at Busby, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
