The Highwood 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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74° on Nov. 11, 2016, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 73° in 2025.
Highwood’s center stands about 3,400 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,280 ft to 3,910 ft, a difference of 630 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Highwood Baldy, about 7,640 ft, 12 miles southeast.
The section below crosses 9 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.
Shale, limestone, dolostone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 84 to 90 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Black-shale, sandstone, siltstone. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 94 to 113 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Age: Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 90 to 100 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 87 to 94 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 94 to 100 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. 3 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 Highwood reaches the Gulf of America by way of Highwood Creek, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,270 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 Highwood; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Highwood has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 17° in January. About 15 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Highwood 7 NE, 7 miles northeast, 200 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
