The Cliffdell 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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3.40 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1899. The next wettest, 3.16 inches, fell in 1906.
Cliffdell’s center stands about 2,550 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,270 ft to 4,820 ft, a difference of 2,550 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Aix, about 7,700 ft, 13 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Oligocene-Miocene volcanic rocks (andesite), from the Oligocene to Middle Miocene, 12 to 34 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 4×. 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: Late Oligocene to Early Pliocene, 3.6 to 28 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Andesite. Age: Oligocene to Middle Miocene, 12 to 34 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Andesite, basalt. Age: Eocene to Oligocene, 23 to 56 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, volcanic. Age: Middle Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 16 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 Cliffdell reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Gold Creek, the Naches, the Yakima and the Columbia: about 490 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 Cliffdell; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Cliffdell has a dry-summer warm-summer continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 22° in January. About 25 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Cliffdell normally reaches 44° and falls to 28°. The record high is 66°, in 1905; the record low 4°, in 1985. The most rain on this date, 1.03 in, fell in 1906.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1899 at Cle Elum, 19 miles north-northeast, 650 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
