The Hague 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.
−21° on Nov. 14, 1940, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1908. Next is −16° in 1911.
Hague’s center stands about 1,900 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,810 ft to 2,050 ft, a difference of 240 ft: rolling country.
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 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 50×. 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, sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Shale, bentonite. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 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 Hague reaches the Gulf of America by way of Spring Creek, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,430 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 Hague; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Hague has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 3° in January. A normal year brings about 39 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 18 inches of water.
On November 14 Hague normally reaches 42° and falls to 21°. The record high is 71°, in 1975; the record low −21°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 1.40 in, fell in 1928.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1908 at Pollock, 16 miles west-southwest, 260 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.