The Wendell 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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75° on Nov. 13, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1915. Next is 73° in 1934.
Wendell’s center stands about 3,440 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,310 ft to 3,510 ft, a difference of 200 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Flat Top Butte, about 4,290 ft, 15 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Basalt (Pleistocene and Pliocene), from the Late Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 3 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 18×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Basalt. Age: Late Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 3 million years old. About 19 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Mixed-clastic, volcanic. Age: Early Miocene to Pleistocene, 2 to 16 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.5 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 Wendell reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of the Snake and the Columbia: about 900 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Umatilla, Brownlee Reservoir, Cove Arm Lake and Hells Canyon Reservoir.
240 miles of the trip are on the Snake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Wendell; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Wendell has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 22° in January. About 10 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Wendell normally reaches 48° and falls to 29°. The record high is 73°, in 1999; the record low 5°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 0.83 in, fell in 2006.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1915 at Jerome, 10 miles east-southeast, 300 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
