The Baker 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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77° on Nov. 12, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1910. Next is 72° in 1953.
Baker’s center stands about 2,920 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,880 ft to 3,110 ft, a difference of 230 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Bearhorn Butte, about 3,400 ft, 11 miles south-southwest.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 42×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale, siltstone, bentonite. Age: Early Paleocene, 62 to 66 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, bentonite. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 84 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, bentonite. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 87 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, black-shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 84 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Early Paleocene to Middle Paleocene, 59 to 66 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 84 million years old. About 2 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 Baker reaches the Gulf of America by way of Sandstone Creek, O'Fallon Creek, the Yellowstone, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,990 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 Baker; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Baker has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 6° in January. A normal year brings about 34 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 16 inches of water.
On November 14 Baker normally reaches 44° and falls to 19°. The record high is 69°, in 1999; the record low −24°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 0.65 in, fell in 1964.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1910 at Plevna, 12 miles west-northwest, 140 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
