The Birch Bay 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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4.67 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1949. The next wettest, 2.12 inches, fell in 2003.
Birch Bay’s center stands about 10 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 230 ft, a difference of 230 ft: rolling country. Open water lies within three miles. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Richards Mountain, about 390 ft, 13 miles south.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Younger glacial drift (fine-detrital, coarse-detrital), from the Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 43×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 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 Birch Bay runs straight into the Pacific Ocean.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Birch Bay; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Birch Bay has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 73° in July; winter nights fall to about 34° in January. About 35 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Birch Bay normally reaches 51° and falls to 38°. The record high is 63°, in 2004; the record low 9°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 2.78 in, fell in 2021.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1949 at Bellingham International Airport, 13 miles southeast, 140 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
