The Utica 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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−15° on Nov. 13, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1965. Next is −9° in 1966.
Utica’s center stands about 4,470 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,360 ft to 4,850 ft, a difference of 490 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Tollgate Mountain, about 7,780 ft, 14 miles west.
The section below crosses 11 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 8×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Mudstone, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 133 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Age: Late Miocene to Holocene, less than 7.2 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Mississippian, 331 to 347 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone, mudstone, sandstone. Age: Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous, 129 to 172 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, dolostone, limestone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 84 to 100 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. 5 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 Utica reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Judith, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,250 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 Utica; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Utica has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in January. About 17 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Utica normally reaches 46° and falls to 23°. The record high is 74°, in 1999; the record low −12°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.08 in, fell in 2008.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1965 at Stanford, 14 miles north-northwest, 180 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
