The Fallon 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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Partly cloudy
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Chance of showers; cooler
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−22° on Nov. 14, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1979. Next is −16° in 2000.
Fallon’s center stands about 2,200 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,140 ft to 2,540 ft, a difference of 400 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Flat Top Butte, about 2,850 ft, 14 miles south.
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 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 24×. 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 8 mi of the line.
Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, bentonite. Age: Early Paleocene, 62 to 66 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Age: Late Miocene to Holocene, less than 7.2 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, bentonite. Age: Early Paleocene, 62 to 66 million years old. About 0.9 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 Fallon reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Yellowstone, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,860 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 Fallon; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Fallon has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 6° in January. About 14 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Fallon normally reaches 44° and falls to 20°. The record high is 67°, in 2001; the record low −22°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.18 in, fell in 1995.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1979 at Mildred 7 NNW, 6 miles southeast, 350 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
