The Geraldine 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
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Showers likely; cooler
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Chance of showers
74° on Nov. 11, 2016, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 73° in 2025.
Geraldine’s center stands about 3,150 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,060 ft to 3,540 ft, a difference of 480 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Square Butte, about 5,720 ft, 9 miles south.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Eagle and Telegraph Creek Formations (sandstone, shale, siltstone), from the Late Cretaceous, 72 to 87 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 7×. 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, siltstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 87 million years old. About 21 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone, dolostone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 84 to 90 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 0.5 mi of the line.
Phonolite. Age: Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 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 Geraldine reaches the Gulf of America by way of Flat Creek, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,190 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 Geraldine; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Geraldine has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 17° in January. About 15 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Highwood 7 NE, 19 miles west, 450 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
