The Basin 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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−28° on Nov. 16, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1898. Next is −25° in 1955.
Basin’s center stands about 3,910 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,820 ft to 4,280 ft, a difference of 460 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Red Butte, about 5,110 ft, 15 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Gravel, pediment, and fan deposits, from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 19×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Claystone, shale, sandstone. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 78 to 83 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sandstone, claystone. Age: Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous, 100 to 164 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 2 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 Basin reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Bighorn, the Yellowstone, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,230 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Oahe, Lake Sakakawea, Lake Sharpe and Lake Francis Case.
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 Basin; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Basin has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 93° in July; winter nights fall to about 9° in January. A normal year brings about 20 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 7 inches of water.
On November 14 Basin normally reaches 47° and falls to 24°. The record high is 71°, in 1953; the record low −19°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.29 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1898 at Basin, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
