The Ruso 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.
−22° on Nov. 14, 1940, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1929. Next is −16° in 1955.
Ruso’s center stands about 2,070 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,990 ft to 2,160 ft, a difference of 170 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Dogden Butte, about 2,280 ft, 8 miles east-southeast.
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 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 34×. 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 19 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Siltstone, claystone, sandstone. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, claystone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 1 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.
Ruso has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 0° in January. A normal year brings about 49 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 19 inches of water.
On November 14 Ruso normally reaches 36° and falls to 18°. The record high is 72°, in 1939; the record low −22°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 0.40 in, fell in 1944.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1929 at Max, 17 miles west. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.