The Fairfield 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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68° on Nov. 13, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 66° in 1989.
Fairfield’s center stands about 5,070 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,030 ft to 5,160 ft, a difference of 130 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Smoky Dome, about 10,030 ft, 12 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvial-fan deposits (gravel), from the Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 6×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gravel. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Dacite, andesite, rhyolite. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Rhyolite. Age: Middle Miocene to Late Miocene, 8 to 14 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Late Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 3 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Granodiorite, granite. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 67 to 107 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 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. 1 smaller unit 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 Fairfield reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Soldier Creek, Camas Creek, the Big Wood, the Malad, the Snake and the Columbia: about 1,000 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Umatilla, Brownlee Reservoir, Cove Arm Lake and Magic Reservoir.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Fairfield; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Fairfield has a dry-summer warm-summer continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 9° in January. About 15 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Fairfield normally reaches 43° and falls to 21°. The record high is 62°, in 1995; the record low −5°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 1.34 in, fell in 2006.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Fairfield Ranger Station, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
