The Velva 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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−22° on Nov. 13, 1940, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1905. Next is −14° in 1919.
Velva’s center stands about 1,510 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,500 ft to 1,690 ft, a difference of 190 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Little Butte, about 1,720 ft, 12 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Hell Creek Formation (sandstone, siltstone, claystone), 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 29×. 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: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Claystone, siltstone. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, claystone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 0.6 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 Velva reaches Hudson Bay by way of the Souris, the Assiniboine, the Red River of the North and the Nelson: about 1,160 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 Velva; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Velva has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 1° in January. A normal year brings about 52 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 19 inches of water.
On November 14 Velva normally reaches 37° and falls to 19°. The record high is 69°, in 1939; the record low −20°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 0.29 in, fell in 1944.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1905 at Minot Experiment Station, 19 miles west-northwest, 260 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
