The Shelby 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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Chance of showers; cooler
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73° on Nov. 11, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1950. Next is 68° in 1953.
Shelby’s center stands about 3,420 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,230 ft to 3,510 ft, a difference of 280 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Telephone Hill, about 4,000 ft, 14 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Kevin Member of Marias River Formation (shale, limestone, dolostone), from the Late Cretaceous, 84 to 90 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 30×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale, limestone, dolostone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 84 to 90 million years old. About 19 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, mudstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 84 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 87 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 Shelby reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Marias, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,340 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 Shelby; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Shelby has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 6° in January. A normal year brings about 39 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 12 inches of water.
On November 14 Shelby normally reaches 42° and falls to 18°. The record high is 68°, in 2025; the record low −18°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.09 in, fell in 2008.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1950 at Shelby, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
