The Ainsworth 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.
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny; warmer
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
82° on Nov. 14, 2025, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1905. Next is 81° in 1941.
Ainsworth’s center stands about 2,530 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,450 ft to 2,560 ft, a difference of 110 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is White Cap Hill, about 2,870 ft, 11 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Ogallala Group or Formation (siltstone-mudstone, conglomerate-sandstone), from the Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old.
The section below crosses 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 27×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Siltstone-mudstone, conglomerate-sandstone. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 24 mi of the line.
Clay. Age: Early Oligocene to Late Oligocene, 23 to 34 million years old. About 0.6 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 Ainsworth reaches the Gulf of America by way of Bone Creek, Long Pine Creek, the Niobrara, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,130 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lewis and Clark Lake.
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 Ainsworth; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Ainsworth has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 15° in January. A normal year brings about 36 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 24 inches of water.
On November 14 Ainsworth normally reaches 50° and falls to 28°. The record high is 82°, in 2025; the record low −15°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 0.35 in, fell in 1928.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1905 at Ainsworth, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
