The Broadus 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 1920. Next is 75° in 1990.
Broadus’s center stands about 3,030 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,000 ft to 3,290 ft, a difference of 290 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Castle Rock, about 3,880 ft, 15 miles west.
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 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 21×. 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 8 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Early Paleocene, 62 to 66 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, bentonite. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 84 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, bentonite. Age: Early Paleocene, 62 to 66 million years old. About 1 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 Broadus reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Powder River, the Yellowstone, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,040 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 Broadus; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Broadus has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 11° in January. About 15 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Broadus normally reaches 49° and falls to 22°. The record high is 72°, in 1999; the record low −13°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.56 in, fell in 1964.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1920 at Broadus, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
