The Toad Lake 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
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy; cooler
Showers likely
67° on Nov. 11, 2005, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1977. Next is 63° in 2016.
Toad Lake’s center stands about 1,540 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,500 ft to 1,680 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Toad Mountain, about 1,760 ft, 3 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Mafic metavolcanic rocks (metabasalt, greenstone), from the Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion 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 43×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Metabasalt, greenstone. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Granite, granodiorite. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Felsic-volcanic. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 0.6 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.
Toad Lake straddles the Laurentian Divide. Rain on the southeast side runs to the Gulf of America; most of the rest goes to Hudson Bay.
From the center of town, a raindrop reaches Hudson Bay by way of the Toad, the Otter Tail, the Red River of the North and the Nelson: about 1,330 river miles. Past the border it runs north through Canada to Hudson Bay. One that lands on the southeast side reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Redeye, the Crow Wing and the Mississippi: about 2,070 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Otter Tail Lake, Big Pine Lake and Lake Winnipeg.
550 miles of the trip are on the Red River of the North.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Toad Lake; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Toad Lake has a cold desert climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about −4° in January. Barely 0.0 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1977 at Tamarac Wildlife Ref, 12 miles northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
