The East Malta Colony 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; warmer
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
Chance of showers; cooler
Mostly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
−20° on Nov. 11, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1972. Next is −17° in 2014.
East Malta Colony’s center stands about 2,250 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,210 ft to 2,400 ft, a difference of 190 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Claggett Formation (shale), from the Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 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 32×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 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 East Malta Colony reaches the Gulf of America by way of Beaver Creek, the Milk River, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,140 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 East Malta Colony; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
East Malta Colony has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 6° in January. About 13 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 East Malta Colony normally reaches 44° and falls to 21°. The record high is 67°, in 2015; the record low −16°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.20 in, fell in 1995.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1972 at Malta 7 E, 6 miles west-northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
