The Nome 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.
Sunny
Sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
68° on Nov. 11, 2005, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1952. Next is 67° in 1953.
Nome’s center stands about 1,320 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,230 ft to 1,360 ft, a difference of 130 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Standing Rock Hill, about 1,480 ft, 6 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Niobrara Formation (shale), from the Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 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. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale. 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 Nome reaches Hudson Bay by way of the Maple, the Sheyenne, the Red River of the North and the Nelson: about 1,210 river miles. Past the border it runs north through Canada to Hudson Bay.
Lake on the way: Lake Winnipeg.
430 miles of the trip are on the Red River of the North.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Nome; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Nome has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 3° in January. About 24 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Nome normally reaches 43° and falls to 24°. The record high is 66°, in 2025; the record low −10°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.16 in, fell in 1994.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1952 at Enderlin 2 W, 9 miles east-southeast, 160 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
