The Plankinton 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
Mostly sunny; warmer
Mostly sunny
Mostly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy; cooler
Showers likely
80° on Nov. 15, 2025, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1909. Next is 79° in 1953.
Plankinton’s center stands about 1,530 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,460 ft to 1,570 ft, a difference of 110 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Archer Hill, about 1,680 ft, 12 miles 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 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 59×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Chalk, marlstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 18 mi of the line.
Shale, bentonite. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 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 Plankinton reaches the Gulf of America by way of Firesteel Creek, the James, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,150 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 Plankinton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Plankinton has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 8° in January. A normal year brings about 38 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 24 inches of water.
On November 14 Plankinton normally reaches 45° and falls to 23°. The record high is 77°, in 1953; the record low −18°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 1.10 in, fell in 1971.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1909 at White Lake, 10 miles west-southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
