The Midland 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
Partly cloudy; cooler
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
−28° on Nov. 14, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1895. Next is −19° in 1986.
Midland’s center stands about 1,880 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,840 ft to 2,130 ft, a difference of 290 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Flat Top Butte, about 2,280 ft, 11 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvium (coarse-detrital, fine-detrital), from the Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 32×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale, bentonite. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 19 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Silt, sand. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital, clay. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 1 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 Midland reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Bad River, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,330 river miles.
Lakes on the way: 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 Midland; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Midland has a cold desert climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 8° in January. Barely 0.0 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Midland normally reaches 49° and falls to 20°. The record high is 76°, in 1975; the record low −28°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.40 in, fell in 1927.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1895 at Midland, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
