The Altoona 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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5.39 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1887. The next wettest, 5.30 inches, fell in 2015.
Altoona’s center stands about 50 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 1,000 ft, a difference of 1,000 ft: steep hill country. Open water lies within three miles. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Wickiup Mountain, about 2,680 ft, 12 miles south-southeast.
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 17×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Middle Eocene to Early Miocene, 16 to 48 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Siltstone, sandstone. Age: Early Miocene to Middle Miocene, 12 to 23 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel, silt. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Quartz-monzonite, granite, basalt. Age: Eocene to Early Pliocene, 3.6 to 56 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate, conglomerate-sandstone. Age: Late Eocene to Miocene, 5.3 to 38 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. 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 Altoona reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of the Columbia: about 20 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Altoona; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Altoona has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 69° in August; winter nights fall to about 37° in February. About 70 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Altoona normally reaches 54° and falls to 40°. The record high is 64°, in 2001; the record low 15°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 2.78 in, fell in 2015.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1887 from the Astoria Area threaded record (Astoria Airport (Port Of), 13 miles southwest). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
