The New Salem 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
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers; cooler
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
76° on Nov. 13, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 71° in 1953.
New Salem’s center stands about 2,160 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,060 ft to 2,300 ft, a difference of 240 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Hailstone Butte, about 2,460 ft, 13 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Sentinel Butte Formation (siltstone, claystone, sandstone), 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 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 14 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 2 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 New Salem reaches the Gulf of America by way of Cut Bank Creek, Sims Creek, Hailstone Creek, Big Muddy Creek, the Heart, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,580 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 New Salem; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
New Salem has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 2° in January. A normal year brings about 44 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 18 inches of water.
On November 14 New Salem normally reaches 40° and falls to 19°. The record high is 69°, in 2001; the record low −22°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 0.53 in, fell in 1944.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at New Salem 5 NW, 5 miles northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
