The Four Corners 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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−15° on Nov. 13, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1966. Next is −14° in 1986.
Four Corners’s center stands about 4,720 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,610 ft to 5,050 ft, a difference of 440 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Saddle Peak, about 9,110 ft, 14 miles northeast.
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 4×. 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: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, sandstone, siltstone. Age: Early Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 20 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Mississippian, 331 to 347 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Mississippian to Middle Mississippian, 331 to 359 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 Four Corners reaches the Gulf of America by way of South Dry Creek, Dry Creek, Hyalite Creek, the East Gallatin, the Gallatin, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,520 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 Four Corners; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Four Corners has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 15° in January. About 16 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Four Corners normally reaches 43° and falls to 23°. The record high is 67°, in 2025; the record low −7°, in 1978. The most rain on this date, 0.78 in, fell in 1996.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1966 at Bozeman 6 W Experiment Farm, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
