The Scotland 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
Sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy; cooler
Showers likely
83° on Nov. 14, 2025, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1896. Next is 80° in 1953.
Scotland’s center stands about 1,350 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,230 ft to 1,380 ft, a difference of 150 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Niobrara Formation (chalk, marlstone, shale), 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 48×. 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 12 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Shale, bentonite. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Shale, mudstone, marlstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 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 Scotland reaches the Gulf of America by way of Dawson Creek, the James, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,020 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 Scotland; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Scotland has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in January. A normal year brings about 39 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 25 inches of water.
On November 14 Scotland normally reaches 46° and falls to 26°. The record high is 83°, in 2025; the record low −26°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 1.20 in, fell in 1928.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1896 at Menno, 10 miles northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
