The Ashland 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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80° on Nov. 12, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1956. Next is 74° in 1990.
Ashland’s center stands about 2,920 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,890 ft to 3,270 ft, a difference of 380 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Fisher Butte, about 4,400 ft, 12 miles west-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvium (gravel, sand, silt), from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old.
The section below crosses 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 14×. 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: Early Paleocene to Middle Paleocene, 59 to 66 million years old. About 21 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 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 Ashland reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Tongue River, the Yellowstone, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,050 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 Ashland; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Ashland has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 11° in January. A normal year brings about 40 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 16 inches of water.
On November 14 Ashland normally reaches 47° and falls to 22°. The record high is 69°, in 2015; the record low −15°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.84 in, fell in 1964.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1956 at Brandenberg, 15 miles north, 150 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
