The Des Lacs 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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−22° on Nov. 13, 1940, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1905. Next is −14° in 1919.
Des Lacs’s center stands about 1,940 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,770 ft to 2,040 ft, a difference of 270 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Twin Buttes, about 2,150 ft, 10 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Bullion Creek Formation (claystone, siltstone), from the Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 27×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Claystone, siltstone. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Siltstone, claystone, sandstone. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 7 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 Des Lacs reaches Hudson Bay by way of the Des Lacs, the Souris, the Assiniboine, the Red River of the North and the Nelson: about 1,230 river miles. Past the border it runs north through Canada to Hudson Bay.
Lake on the way: Lake Winnipeg.
400 miles of the trip are on the Nelson.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Des Lacs; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Des Lacs has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 1° in January. A normal year brings about 52 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 19 inches of water.
On November 14 Des Lacs normally reaches 37° and falls to 19°. The record high is 69°, in 1939; the record low −20°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 0.29 in, fell in 1944.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1905 at Minot Experiment Station, 13 miles east-southeast, 170 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
