The Great Plains

The Great Plains of North America is a somewhat triangular area covering 1.4 million square miles that extends for about 2,400 miles from Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba southward through Texas into Mexico and approximately 1,000 miles from foothills of the Rocky Mountains eastward to Indiana. Rainfall increases from west to east, resulting in different types of prairies, with the shortgrass prairie in the rain shadow of the Rockies, mixed-grass prairie in the central Great Plains, and tallgrass prairie in the wetter eastern region. The Great Plains region covers, roughly, the eastern 2/5 of the state. The land is flat and dry, sloping gently upward from east to west to meet the Rocky Mountains. This eastward-sloping, treeless, semi-arid, shortgrass plateau's annual rainfall is between thirteen and twenty inches, and the region's continental climate creates an environment of extremes: excessive heat and cold, and violent weather patterns.