The Custer 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 cloudy
Sunny; warmer
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy; cooler
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
74° on Nov. 16, 1975, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1911. Next is 72° in 1999.
Custer’s center stands about 5,320 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,240 ft to 6,050 ft, a difference of 810 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Odakota Mountain, about 7,180 ft, 13 miles northwest.
The section below crosses 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 7×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Quartzite, schist. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Biotite-schist. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Schist. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Late Devonian to Early Mississippian, 347 to 384 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mica-schist, quartzite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, sandstone, shale. Age: Middle Cambrian to Late Ordovician, 445 to 521 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. 4 smaller units along the line are not listed.
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 Custer reaches the Gulf of America by way of French Creek, the Cheyenne, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,550 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 Custer; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Custer has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in January. A normal year brings about 58 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 21 inches of water.
On November 14 Custer normally reaches 46° and falls to 24°. The record high is 70°, in 1999; the record low −23°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.47 in, fell in 1927.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1911 at Custer, here, 160 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
