The Reeder 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
Mostly cloudy; cooler
Mostly cloudy
Chance of showers
−22° on Nov. 14, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1996. Next is −15° in 2022.
Reeder’s center stands about 2,820 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,710 ft to 3,010 ft, a difference of 300 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Wolf Butte, about 3,020 ft, 9 miles east-northeast.
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 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 45×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Siltstone, claystone, sandstone. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, claystone. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Claystone, siltstone. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, claystone. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 0.9 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 Reeder reaches the Gulf of America by way of Buffalo Creek, the North Fork Grand, the Grand River, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,630 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 Reeder; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Reeder has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 5° in January. About 14 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Reeder normally reaches 42° and falls to 18°. The record high is 71°, in 2025; the record low −22°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.03 in, fell in 2005.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1996 at Hettinger Municipal Airport, 15 miles east-southeast, 120 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
