The Fairfield 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
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Showers likely; cooler
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
Chance of showers
71° on Nov. 12, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1927. Next is 70° in 1933.
Fairfield’s center stands about 3,990 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,760 ft to 4,210 ft, a difference of 450 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Crown Butte, about 4,690 ft, 13 miles south.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Gravel, from the Late Miocene to Holocene, less than 7.2 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 22×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Age: Late Miocene to Holocene, less than 7.2 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 87 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, mudstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 84 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone, dolostone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 84 to 90 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 87 to 94 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 Fairfield reaches the Gulf of America by way of Muddy Creek, the Sun River, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,320 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 Fairfield; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Fairfield has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 17° in January. About 12 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Fairfield normally reaches 43° and falls to 25°. The record high is 71°, in 1999; the record low −18°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 0.17 in, fell in 1927.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1927 at Fairfield, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
