The Thedford 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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83° on Nov. 14, 2025, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1902. Next is 81° in 1941.
Thedford’s center stands about 2,860 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,820 ft to 3,070 ft, a difference of 250 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Signal Hill, about 3,020 ft, 15 miles southeast.
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 53×. 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 Thedford reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Middle Loup, the Loup, the Platte, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,100 river miles.
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 Thedford; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Thedford has a cold desert climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 11° in January. Barely 0.0 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Thedford normally reaches 52° and falls to 22°. The record high is 83°, in 2025; the record low −16°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 0.40 in, fell in 1987.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1902 at Purdum, 18 miles east-northeast, 170 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
