The Hardy 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 1903. Next is 70° in 1907.
Hardy’s center stands about 3,390 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,360 ft to 4,920 ft, a difference of 1,560 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Adel Mountain, about 7,080 ft, 9 miles south-southeast.
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 6×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Andesite, basalt. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 20 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, mudstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 84 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 0.5 mi of the line.
Volcanic. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 84 million years old. About 0.4 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 0.4 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 Hardy reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,340 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Oahe, Lake Sakakawea, Lake Fort Peck and Lake Sharpe.
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 Hardy; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Hardy has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 20° 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 Hardy normally reaches 45° and falls to 29°. The record high is 71°, in 1999; the record low −9°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.50 in, fell in 1903.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1903 at Holter Dam, 17 miles southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
