The Toston 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.
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
Showers likely; cooler
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
Chance of showers
74° on Nov. 12, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 73° in 1990.
Toston’s center stands about 3,920 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,890 ft to 4,900 ft, a difference of 1,010 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Sixmile Mountain, about 7,610 ft, 10 miles east.
The section below crosses 14 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.
Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, sandstone, siltstone. Age: Early Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 20 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Metasiltstone, argillite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Mississippian, 331 to 347 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Age: Late Miocene to Holocene, less than 7.2 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone, sandstone. Age: Middle Mississippian to Permian, 252 to 347 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. 8 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 Toston reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,450 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 Toston; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Toston has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in January. A normal year brings about 24 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 11 inches of water.
On November 14 Toston normally reaches 44° and falls to 23°. The record high is 67°, in 2021; the record low −11°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.15 in, fell in 1978.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Townsend 3 SE, 9 miles north. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
