The Hazard 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.
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny; warmer
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
84° on Nov. 15, 2025, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 82° in 1896.
Hazard’s center stands about 2,130 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,060 ft to 2,240 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Ogallala Group or Formation (siltstone-mudstone, conglomerate-sandstone), from the Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 53×. 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-mudstone, conglomerate-sandstone. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 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 Hazard reaches the Gulf of America by way of Mud Creek, the South Loup, the Middle Loup, the Loup, the Platte, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,000 river miles.
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 Hazard; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Hazard has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 12° in January. A normal year brings about 24 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 26 inches of water.
On November 14 Hazard normally reaches 52° and falls to 24°. The record high is 75°, in 1975; the record low −8°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 0.62 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Ravenna, 9 miles east-southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
