The Homestead 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 1900. Next is 72° in 1934.
Homestead’s center stands about 1,980 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,920 ft to 2,100 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Flagstaff Hill, about 2,520 ft, 12 miles northwest.
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 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 43×. 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 23 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 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 Homestead reaches the Gulf of America by way of Big Muddy Creek, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,830 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 Homestead; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Homestead 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 Homestead 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, 19 miles south. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
