The Ferndale 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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5.57 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1926. The next wettest, 4.77 inches, fell in 1984.
Ferndale’s center stands about 50 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 1,240 ft, a difference of 1,240 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Rainbow Peak, about 3,360 ft, 14 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Quaternary alluvium and marine deposits (coarse-detrital), from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 8×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Late Cretaceous to Pliocene, 2.6 to 100 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Miocene to Pleistocene, less than 23 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Oligocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 34 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 Ferndale reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Francis Creek, the Salt River and the Eel: about 8 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Ferndale; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Ferndale has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 73° in September; winter nights fall to about 42° in December. About 48 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Ferndale normally reaches 61° and falls to 45°. The record high is 74°, in 1999; the record low 30°, in 1978. The most rain on this date, 2.96 in, fell in 1953.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1926 at Scotia, 11 miles southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
