The Cambridge 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.
Mostly cloudy
Partly cloudy; warmer
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
94° on Nov. 15, 1990, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1898. Next is 84° in 1999.
Cambridge’s center stands about 2,270 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,240 ft to 2,450 ft, a difference of 210 ft: rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Niobrara Formation (limestone, shale), from the Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 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 55×. 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 11 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 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.
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 Cambridge reaches the Gulf of America by way of Medicine Creek, the Republican, the Kansas, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,020 river miles.
Lake on the way: Harlan County 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 Cambridge; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Cambridge has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 13° in January. A normal year brings about 24 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 23 inches of water.
On November 14 Cambridge normally reaches 55° and falls to 23°. The record high is 91°, in 1990; the record low −8°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.21 in, fell in 1926.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1898 at Cambridge, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
