The McKay 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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80° on Nov. 12, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1892. Next is 75° in 1908.
McKay’s center stands about 2,330 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,620 ft to 3,430 ft, a difference of 1,810 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Table Mountain, about 5,000 ft, 15 miles south-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Grande Ronde Basalt, from the Early Miocene to Middle Miocene, 12 to 23 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 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.
Basalt. Age: Early Miocene to Middle Miocene, 12 to 23 million years old. About 17 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, mudstone. Age: Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 23 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel, silt. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Middle Miocene, 12 to 16 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 McKay reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of McKay Creek, the Umatilla and the Columbia: about 350 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Umatilla.
210 miles of the trip are on the Columbia.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of McKay; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
McKay has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 28° in January. A normal year brings about 16 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 13 inches of water.
On November 14 McKay normally reaches 50° and falls to 33°. The record high is 72°, in 1953; the record low −4°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 0.53 in, fell in 1963.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1892 from the Pendleton Area threaded record (Pendleton E Or Regional Airport, 16 miles north-northwest, 840 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
