The Thompson 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.
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−32° on Nov. 15, 1911, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1899. Next is −19° in 1914.
Thompson’s center stands about 850 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 820 ft to 890 ft, a difference of 70 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Hallock Red Beds (shale, limestone, dolostone), from the Jurassic, 145 to 202 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 64×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone, dolostone. Age: Jurassic, 145 to 202 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Granodiorite, diorite. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Tonalite, granodiorite, diorite. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion 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 Thompson reaches Hudson Bay by way of the Middle Branch Two Rivers, the Two Rivers, the Red River of the North and the Nelson: about 850 river miles. Past the border it runs north through Canada to Hudson Bay.
Lake on the way: Lake Winnipeg.
400 miles of the trip are on the Nelson.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Thompson; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Thompson has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about −4° in January. About 22 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Thompson normally reaches 35° and falls to 19°. The record high is 65°, in 1953; the record low −19°, in 1919. The most rain on this date, 2.00 in, fell in 1944.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1899 at Hallock, 4 miles west. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
