The Crary 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.
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Chance of showers
Mostly cloudy
Chance of showers
66° on Nov. 14, 2025, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1963. Next is 60° in 2016.
Crary’s center stands about 1,480 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,450 ft to 1,510 ft, a difference of 60 ft: nearly flat ground. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Devils Heart Butte, about 1,680 ft, 14 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Pierre Formation (shale), from the Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 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 64×. 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. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 23 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 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.
Crary has a cold desert climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about −2° in January. Barely 0.0 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1963 at Devils Lake Municipal Airport, 13 miles west-northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
