The Winnett 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.
79° on Nov. 12, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1913. Next is 78° in 1990.
Winnett’s center stands about 2,940 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,910 ft to 3,210 ft, a difference of 300 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Rattlesnake Butte, about 3,440 ft, 12 miles 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 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 23×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 94 to 100 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, sandstone-mudstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 87 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale, dolostone, limestone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 87 to 90 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 90 to 94 million years old. About 0.6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 84 to 87 million years old. About 0.3 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 Winnett reaches the Gulf of America by way of McDonald Creek, Box Elder Creek, Flatwillow Creek, the Musselshell, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,150 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 Winnett; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Winnett has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in January. A normal year brings about 43 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 14 inches of water.
On November 14 Winnett normally reaches 47° and falls to 24°. The record high is 75°, in 1999; the record low −13°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.16 in, fell in 1930.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1913 at Flatwillow 4 ENE, 13 miles south, 350 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.