The Morristown 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
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Mostly cloudy; cooler
Mostly cloudy
Chance of showers
−20° on Nov. 13, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is −18° in 2022.
Morristown’s center stands about 2,250 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,190 ft to 2,430 ft, a difference of 240 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pretty Rock Butte, about 2,820 ft, 14 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Ludlow Formation (sandstone), from the Paleocene, 56 to 66 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 31×. 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, claystone, sandstone. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, claystone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 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 Morristown reaches the Gulf of America by way of Hay Creek, Cedar Creek, the Cannonball, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,570 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 Morristown; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Morristown has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 5° in January. A normal year brings about 51 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 16 inches of water.
On November 14 Morristown normally reaches 42° and falls to 20°. The record high is 69°, in 2025; the record low −6°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.16 in, fell in 1995.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Pretty Rock, 18 miles north-northwest, 230 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
