The Elgin 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.
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy; cooler
Chance of showers; cooler
Mostly cloudy
Chance of showers
−17° on Nov. 14, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1984. Next is −16° in 2022.
Elgin’s center stands about 2,350 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,190 ft to 2,450 ft, a difference of 260 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is North Star Butte, about 2,790 ft, 14 miles west-northwest.
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 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 49×. 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 20 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, claystone. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 4 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 Elgin reaches the Gulf of America by way of Antelope Creek, the Heart, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,610 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Oahe, Lake Sharpe, Lake Francis Case and Lewis and Clark Lake.
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 Elgin; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Elgin has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 3° in January. A normal year brings about 38 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 17 inches of water.
On November 14 Elgin normally reaches 42° and falls to 19°. The record high is 72°, in 2001; the record low −17°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.29 in, fell in 1989.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1984 at Heart Butte Dam, 13 miles north, 220 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
