The Johnstown 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
Mostly sunny; warmer
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
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.
Johnstown’s center stands about 2,600 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,490 ft to 2,650 ft, a difference of 160 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is White Cap Hill, about 2,870 ft, 8 miles south.
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.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 33×. 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.
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 Johnstown reaches the Gulf of America by way of Coon Creek, Plum Creek, the Niobrara, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,150 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 Johnstown; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Johnstown 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 Johnstown 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, 11 miles east. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
