The Spring Creek Colony 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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−29° on Nov. 16, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1896. Next is −24° in 1986.
Spring Creek Colony’s center stands about 3,520 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,420 ft to 4,280 ft, a difference of 860 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Burnette Peak, about 6,010 ft, 13 miles east.
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 12 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 9×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Age: Late Miocene to Holocene, less than 7.2 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Shale, dolostone, limestone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 84 to 100 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Mudstone, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 133 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, siltstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 87 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone, black-shale. Age: Early Mississippian to Middle Mississippian, 331 to 359 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 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 Spring Creek Colony reaches the Gulf of America by way of Big Spring Creek, the Judith, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,210 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 Spring Creek Colony; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Spring Creek Colony has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 13° in January. About 17 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Spring Creek Colony normally reaches 44° and falls to 21°. The record high is 72°, in 1999; the record low −21°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 0.25 in, fell in 2011.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1896 at Lewistown Airport, 10 miles southeast, 600 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
