The Whitewood 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
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny; cooler
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
78° on Nov. 12, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1902. Next is 77° in 1990.
Whitewood’s center stands about 3,640 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,440 ft to 4,680 ft, a difference of 1,240 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Terry Peak, about 7,040 ft, 13 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvium (coarse-detrital, fine-detrital), from the Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 17 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 6×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Claystone, conglomerate, sandstone. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital, clay. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Late Pennsylvanian to Permian, 273 to 307 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Phyllite, schist. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 11 smaller units along the line are not listed.
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 Whitewood reaches the Gulf of America by way of Whitewood Creek, the Belle Fourche, the Cheyenne, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,530 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Oahe, 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 Whitewood; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Whitewood has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 15° in January. A normal year brings about 48 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 21 inches of water.
On November 14 Whitewood normally reaches 48° and falls to 25°. The record high is 77°, in 1990; the record low −20°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.59 in, fell in 1956.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1902 at Fort Meade, 9 miles east-southeast, 330 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
