The Circle 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
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Chance of showers; cooler
Mostly cloudy
Chance of showers
−22° on Nov. 14, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1963. Next is −18° in 2000.
Circle’s center stands about 2,430 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,390 ft to 2,620 ft, a difference of 230 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Antelope, about 3,460 ft, 14 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Gravel, from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 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 30×. 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 22 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. 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.
A raindrop that lands in Circle reaches the Gulf of America by way of Horse Creek, the Redwater, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,960 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 Circle; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Circle has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 8° in January. About 14 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Circle normally reaches 43° and falls to 22°. The record high is 71°, in 1999; the record low −22°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.31 in, fell in 1995.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1963 at Circle, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
