The Kirby 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
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
Mostly sunny; cooler
Chance of showers
Chance of showers
77° on Nov. 15, 1941, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1899. Next is 74° in 1999.
Kirby’s center stands about 4,260 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,200 ft to 4,920 ft, a difference of 720 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Twin Buttes, about 6,080 ft, 14 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Gravel, pediment, and fan deposits, from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 16×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 78 to 83 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Claystone, shale, sandstone. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gravel. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 3 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 Kirby reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Bighorn, the Yellowstone, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,290 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Oahe, Lake Sakakawea, Lake Sharpe and Lake Francis Case.
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 Kirby; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Kirby has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 92° in July; winter nights fall to about 12° in January. A normal year brings about 27 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 12 inches of water.
On November 14 Kirby normally reaches 49° and falls to 22°. The record high is 71°, in 1999; the record low −14°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.84 in, fell in 1991.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1899 at Thermopolis, 11 miles south. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
