The Froid 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
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Chance of showers; cooler
Mostly cloudy
Chance of showers
77° on Nov. 12, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1900. Next is 72° in 1934.
Froid’s center stands about 2,040 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,950 ft to 2,160 ft, a difference of 210 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Clay Butte, about 2,420 ft, 13 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Tongue River Member of Fort Union Formation (sandstone, shale), from the Early Paleocene to Middle Paleocene, 59 to 66 million 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 44×. 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 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Middle Paleocene to Late Paleocene, 56 to 62 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 Froid reaches the Gulf of America by way of Sheep Creek, Big Muddy Creek, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,840 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 Froid; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Froid has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 2° in January. About 14 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Froid normally reaches 41° and falls to 18°. The record high is 66°, in 1934; the record low −19°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.48 in, fell in 1906.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1900 at Culbertson, 13 miles south, 110 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
