The Rockland 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; warmer
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Showers likely; cooler
Chance of showers
Showers likely
Showers likely
74° on Nov. 13, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1973. Next is 72° in 1989.
Rockland’s center stands about 4,670 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,560 ft to 5,110 ft, a difference of 550 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Deep Creek Peak, about 8,720 ft, 13 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvial deposits (gravel, sand, silt), 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 5×. 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 7 mi of the line.
Silt. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 324 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Middle Miocene to Late Pliocene, 3 to 15 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 33,000 years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 1 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 Rockland reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of East Fork Rock Creek, South Fork Rock Creek, the Snake and the Columbia: about 1,030 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Umatilla, Brownlee Reservoir, Cove Arm Lake and Hells Canyon Reservoir.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Rockland; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Rockland has a dry-summer warm-summer continental climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 17° in January. About 14 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Rockland normally reaches 47° and falls to 24°. The record high is 71°, in 1999; the record low 2°, in 1978. The most rain on this date, 0.79 in, fell in 2006.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1973 at Massacre Rocks State Park, 9 miles northwest, 480 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
