The Philipsburg 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.
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
Showers likely; cooler
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
Chance of showers
72° on Nov. 11, 2016, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1955. Next is 68° in 1999.
Philipsburg’s center stands about 5,260 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,030 ft to 7,250 ft, a difference of 2,220 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Racetrack Peak, about 9,480 ft, 11 miles east.
The section below crosses 12 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 5×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Granitic. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Metasiltstone, argillite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sedimentary. Age: Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Metasiltstone, argillite, quartzite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, limestone, shale. Age: Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous, 100 to 172 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 6 smaller units 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 Philipsburg reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Flint Creek, 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 Philipsburg; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Philipsburg has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in December. About 16 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Philipsburg normally reaches 44° and falls to 21°. The record high is 68°, in 1999; the record low −17°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.15 in, fell in 2017.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1955 at Philipsburg Ranger Station, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
