The Philip 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
Sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy; cooler
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
78° on Nov. 11, 2005, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1907. Next is 77° in 1999.
Philip’s center stands about 2,190 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,120 ft to 2,400 ft, a difference of 280 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Grindstone Butte, about 2,680 ft, 13 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Pierre Shale (shale, bentonite), from the Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 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 12 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital, clay. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 0.4 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 Philip reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Bad River, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,380 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 Philip; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Philip has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in January. About 16 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Philip normally reaches 49° and falls to 22°. The record high is 74°, in 1999; the record low −25°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.38 in, fell in 1956.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1907 at Philip Airport, 3 miles east-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
