The Westwood Colony 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.
72° on Nov. 14, 1953, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 72° in 2001.
Westwood Colony’s center stands about 1,300 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,280 ft to 1,330 ft, a difference of 50 ft: nearly flat ground.
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 44×. 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 16 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Chalk, marlstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 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.
Westwood Colony has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 0° in January. A normal year brings about 45 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 24 inches of water.
On November 14 Westwood Colony normally reaches 40° and falls to 20°. The record high is 72°, in 1953; the record low −13°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 0.53 in, fell in 1928.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Britton, 7 miles south-southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.