The Portland 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.
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers; warmer
Chance of showers; cooler
Partly cloudy
Mostly cloudy; warmer
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy
4.91 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1887. The next wettest, 3.98 inches, fell in 1934.
Portland’s center stands about 30 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 40 ft, a difference of 40 ft: nearly flat ground. Open water lies within three miles.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Beaumont Formation, areas predominantly sand, from the Pleistocene, less than 2.6 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 64×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sand. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Clay, silt. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sand, fine-detrital. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 0.6 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.
Rain that falls on Portland runs straight into Corpus Christi Bay and the Gulf of America.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Portland; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Portland has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 95° in August; winter nights fall to about 48° in January. About 32 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Portland normally reaches 76° and falls to 57°. The record high is 91°, in 1989; the record low 33°, in 2018. The most rain on this date, 1.91 in, fell in 1943.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1887 from the Corpus Christi Area threaded record (Corpus Christi International Airport, 14 miles west-southwest). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
