The King Ranch Colony 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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−29° on Nov. 16, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1896. Next is −24° in 1986.
King Ranch Colony’s center stands about 3,910 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,770 ft to 4,160 ft, a difference of 390 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Burnette Peak, about 6,010 ft, 15 miles east-northeast.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 12×. 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 12 mi of the line.
Shale, dolostone, limestone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 84 to 100 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Mudstone, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 133 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mudstone, marlstone. Age: Late Jurassic, 145 to 164 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 113 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 0.6 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 1 smaller unit along the line are not listed.
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 King Ranch Colony reaches the Gulf of America by way of Little Rock Creek, the Judith, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,230 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 King Ranch Colony; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
King Ranch Colony has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 13° in January. About 17 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 King Ranch Colony normally reaches 44° and falls to 21°. The record high is 72°, in 1999; the record low −21°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 0.25 in, fell in 2011.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1896 at Lewistown Airport, 8 miles east, 220 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
