The Towner 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.
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−24° on Nov. 13, 1940, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1896. Next is −20° in 1911.
Towner’s center stands about 1,470 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,450 ft to 1,510 ft, a difference of 60 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Bald Butte, about 1,700 ft, 15 miles south.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Fox Hills Formation (shale, sandstone), from the Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 64×. 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 24 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 Towner reaches Hudson Bay by way of the Souris, the Assiniboine, the Red River of the North and the Nelson: about 1,070 river miles. Past the border it runs north through Canada to Hudson Bay.
Lake on the way: Lake Winnipeg.
400 miles of the trip are on the Nelson.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Towner; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Towner has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about −4° 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 Towner normally reaches 38° and falls to 16°. The record high is 69°, in 1939; the record low −13°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.63 in, fell in 1994.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1896 at Towner 2 NE, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
