The Cascade Valley 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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68° on Nov. 12, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1949. Next is 67° in 2021.
Cascade Valley’s center stands about 1,060 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,040 ft to 1,190 ft, a difference of 150 ft: gently rolling country.
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 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 45×. 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 18 mi of the line.
Silt. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Silt, sand. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 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 Cascade Valley reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Moses Lake, Potholes Reservoir, Lower Crab Creek and the Columbia: about 470 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Umatilla, Potholes Reservoir and Moses Lake.
210 miles of the trip are on the Columbia.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Cascade Valley; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Cascade Valley has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 24° in January. About 8 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Cascade Valley normally reaches 47° and falls to 29°. The record high is 67°, in 2021; the record low 4°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 0.41 in, fell in 1963.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1949 at Moses Lake Grant County Airport, 4 miles north, 110 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
