The Golva 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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74° on Nov. 12, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1962. Next is 68° in 1975.
Golva’s center stands about 2,810 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,760 ft to 3,020 ft, a difference of 260 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Sentinel Butte, about 3,420 ft, 12 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Bullion Creek Formation (claystone, siltstone), from the Paleocene, 56 to 66 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 28×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Claystone, siltstone. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 15 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Early Paleocene to Middle Paleocene, 59 to 66 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, bentonite. Age: Early Paleocene, 62 to 66 million years old. About 0.7 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 Golva reaches the Gulf of America by way of Bullion Creek, the Little Missouri, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,850 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 Golva; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Golva has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 9° in January. A normal year brings about 55 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 17 inches of water.
On November 14 Golva normally reaches 41° and falls to 22°. The record high is 67°, in 1999; the record low −6°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.78 in, fell in 1964.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1962 at Carlyle 13 NW, 16 miles west, 340 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
