The McLaughlin 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 sunny
Sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
−18° on Nov. 13, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1919. Next is −14° in 1955.
McLaughlin’s center stands about 2,000 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,920 ft to 2,100 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Lonesome Butte, about 2,270 ft, 12 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Fox Hills Sandstone (sandstone, siltstone), from the Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 35×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, claystone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, bentonite. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital, clay. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.3 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 McLaughlin reaches the Gulf of America by way of Oak Creek, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,400 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Oahe, Lake Sharpe, Lake Francis Case and 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 McLaughlin; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
McLaughlin has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 4° in January. A normal year brings about 35 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 20 inches of water.
On November 14 McLaughlin normally reaches 42° and falls to 19°. The record high is 70°, in 1999; the record low −7°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 0.50 in, fell in 2003.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1919 at Mc Laughlin 2 SW, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
