The Racetrack 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
73° on Nov. 12, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 70° in 1990.
Racetrack’s center stands about 4,680 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,610 ft to 5,350 ft, a difference of 740 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Powell, about 10,130 ft, 12 miles west-northwest.
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.
Granitic. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sedimentary. Age: Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Quartz-latite. Age: Early Eocene to Middle Eocene, 41 to 56 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Age: Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old. About 0.7 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 Racetrack reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Racetrack Creek, the Clark Fork, the Pend Oreille and the Columbia: about 1,180 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 Racetrack; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Racetrack has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 11° in January. About 15 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Racetrack normally reaches 41° and falls to 17°. The record high is 68°, in 2025; the record low −18°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.20 in, fell in 1903.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 from the Deer Lodge Area threaded record (Deer Lodge 3 W, 8 miles north-northwest, 160 ft higher). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
