The North Sioux City 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.
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Showers likely
78° on Nov. 13, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1889. Next is 77° in 1971.
North Sioux City’s center stands about 1,100 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,070 ft to 1,390 ft, a difference of 320 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Lucia, about 1,400 ft, 1 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Dakota Formation (sandstone), from the Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 51×. 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. Age: Late Cretaceous, 90 to 100 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 94 to 113 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 North Sioux City reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Big Sioux, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 1,900 river miles.
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 North Sioux City; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
North Sioux City has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in January. A normal year brings about 36 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 29 inches of water.
On November 14 North Sioux City normally reaches 48° and falls to 26°. The record high is 76°, in 2025; the record low −9°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 1.08 in, fell in 1926.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1889 from the Sioux City Area threaded record (Sioux City Airport, 11 miles south-southeast). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
