The Mountain Plains 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
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny; cooler
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
−23° on Nov. 16, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is −15° in 1916.
Mountain Plains’s center stands about 4,280 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,570 ft to 5,320 ft, a difference of 1,750 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Terry Peak, about 7,040 ft, 10 miles south.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Minnekahta Limestone and Opeche Shale (siltstone, sandstone, shale), from the Permian, 252 to 299 million years old.
The section below crosses 14 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 6×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, sandstone, shale. Age: Middle Cambrian to Late Ordovician, 445 to 521 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Late Devonian to Early Mississippian, 347 to 384 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital, clay. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Permian to Early Triassic, 247 to 260 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 8 smaller units along the line are not listed.
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 Mountain Plains reaches the Gulf of America by way of Spearfish Creek, Redwater Creek, the Belle Fourche, the Cheyenne, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,580 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 Mountain Plains; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Mountain Plains has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in January. A normal year brings about 70 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 21 inches of water.
On November 14 Mountain Plains normally reaches 46° and falls to 26°. The record high is 76°, in 1894; the record low −20°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 2.67 in, fell in 1944.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Spearfish, 2 miles north, 650 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
