The Sidney 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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77° on Nov. 12, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1910. Next is 68° in 1953.
Sidney’s center stands about 1,940 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,890 ft to 2,200 ft, a difference of 310 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is The Pyramid, about 2,170 ft, 14 miles south-southwest.
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 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, shale. Age: Early Paleocene to Middle Paleocene, 59 to 66 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Siltstone, claystone, sandstone. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Claystone, siltstone. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 0.4 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 Sidney reaches the Gulf of America by way of Lone Tree Creek, the Yellowstone, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,770 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 Sidney; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Sidney has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 6° in January. A normal year brings about 30 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 16 inches of water.
On November 14 Sidney normally reaches 42° and falls to 22°. The record high is 66°, in 2025; the record low −10°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 0.25 in, fell in 1964.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1910 at Sidney, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
