The Fort Washington 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 sunny
Partly cloudy
Showers likely; cooler
Mostly sunny
Showers likely
Showers likely
Mostly sunny
84° on Nov. 11, 2016, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1881. Next is 83° in 1900.
Fort Washington’s center stands about 380 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 250 ft to 400 ft, a difference of 150 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Corlew Mountain, about 1,930 ft, 15 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Older Quaternary alluvium and marine deposits (coarse-detrital), from the Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 15×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Granodiorite. Age: Permian to Tertiary, 2.6 to 260 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Paleocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 66 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Basanite. Age: Early Pliocene to Late Pliocene, 3 to 4 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Miocene to Pleistocene, less than 23 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Basalt, serpentinite. Age: Ordovician to Permian, 252 to 487 million years old. About 0.4 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 Fort Washington reaches San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean by way of the San Joaquin and New York Slough: about 250 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Fort Washington; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Fort Washington has a hot semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 98° in July; winter nights fall to about 40° in December. About 11 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Fort Washington normally reaches 65° and falls to 46°. The record high is 79°, in 1948; the record low 30°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 1.35 in, fell in 1953.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1881 from the Fresno Area threaded record (Fresno Yosemite Int'L, 7 miles south-southeast). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
