The Hardin 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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81° on Nov. 12, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 76° in 1990.
Hardin’s center stands about 2,910 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,870 ft to 3,050 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Haystack Butte, about 3,640 ft, 12 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Gravel, from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 25×. 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, dolostone, limestone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 87 to 90 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Mudstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 87 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 84 million 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. 2 smaller units along the line are not listed.
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 Hardin reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Bighorn, the Yellowstone, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,080 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 Hardin; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Hardin has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 11° in January. A normal year brings about 28 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 14 inches of water.
On November 14 Hardin normally reaches 49° and falls to 22°. The record high is 72°, in 1999; the record low −25°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.41 in, fell in 1956.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Hardin, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
