The Helmville 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 cloudy
Partly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Showers likely; cooler
Mostly sunny
Chance of showers
Chance of showers
73° on Nov. 12, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1927. Next is 67° in 1990.
Helmville’s center stands about 4,300 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,250 ft to 4,760 ft, a difference of 510 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Old Baldy Mountain, about 7,480 ft, 12 miles south-southeast.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 6×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Sedimentary. Age: Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Metasiltstone, argillite, quartzite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Andesite, basalt. Age: Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 2 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 Helmville reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Nevada Creek, the Blackfoot, the Clark Fork, the Pend Oreille and the Columbia: about 1,160 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Pend Oreille, Lake Umatilla and Noxon Rapids Reservoir.
460 miles of the trip are on the Columbia.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Helmville; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Helmville has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 13° in January. A normal year brings about 30 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 12 inches of water.
On November 14 Helmville normally reaches 41° and falls to 20°. The record high is 62°, in 2025; the record low −31°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 0.31 in, fell in 2005.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1927 at Dummond 0.4 SSW, 16 miles south-southwest, 350 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
