The Chester 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.
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Showers likely; cooler
Partly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
−31° on Nov. 16, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1900. Next is −26° in 1955.
Chester’s center stands about 3,140 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,100 ft to 3,270 ft, a difference of 170 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Eagle Formation (sandstone, sandstone-mudstone), from the Late Cretaceous, 72 to 87 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 37×. 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, sandstone-mudstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 87 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 6 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 Chester reaches the Gulf of America by way of Cottonwood Creek, the Marias, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,300 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 Chester; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Chester has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 3° in January. A normal year brings about 36 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 12 inches of water.
On November 14 Chester normally reaches 41° and falls to 16°. The record high is 72°, in 2025; the record low −20°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.52 in, fell in 1911.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1900 at Chester, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
