The Rosebud 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.
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
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Chance of showers; cooler
Chance of showers; cooler
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Chance of showers
−15° on Nov. 12, 2000, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1975. Next is −11° in 2022.
Rosebud’s center stands about 2,480 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,450 ft to 2,770 ft, a difference of 320 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Rosebud Buttes, about 3,310 ft, 7 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvium (gravel, sand, silt), from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old.
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 26×. 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. Age: Early Paleocene, 62 to 66 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, bentonite. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 84 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, bentonite. Age: Early Paleocene, 62 to 66 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 Rosebud reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Yellowstone, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,960 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Oahe, Lake Sakakawea, Lake Sharpe and Lake Francis Case.
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 Rosebud; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Rosebud has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in January. A normal year brings about 35 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 16 inches of water.
On November 14 Rosebud normally reaches 47° and falls to 22°. The record high is 75°, in 1999; the record low −8°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.15 in, fell in 2022.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1975 at Forsyth, 11 miles west. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
