The Valentine 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
−22° on Nov. 14, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1889. Next is −18° in 1891.
Valentine’s center stands about 2,590 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,390 ft to 2,730 ft, a difference of 340 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Rustlers Roost, about 2,970 ft, 13 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 37×. 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 Valentine reaches the Gulf of America by way of Minnechaduza Creek, the Niobrara, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,160 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 Valentine; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Valentine has a dry-winter hot-summer continental climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 11° in January. A normal year brings about 34 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 21 inches of water.
On November 14 Valentine normally reaches 51° and falls to 22°. The record high is 81°, in 2025; the record low −22°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.38 in, fell in 1891.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1889 from the Valentine Area threaded record (Valentine Miller Field Airport, here). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
