The Darrington 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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6.36 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1911. The next wettest, 5.56 inches, fell in 2001.
Darrington’s center stands about 560 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 460 ft to 3,110 ft, a difference of 2,650 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Pugh, about 6,990 ft, 13 miles southeast.
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 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 3×. 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, gravel. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Graywacke, argillite, slate. Age: Late Triassic to Paleocene, 56 to 237 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Greenstone. Age: Late Triassic to Early Cretaceous, 100 to 237 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Phyllite. Age: Jurassic to Early Cretaceous, 100 to 202 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Graywacke. Age: Late Devonian to Cretaceous, 66 to 384 million years old. About 0.9 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 Darrington reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of the Sauk, the Skagit, the South Fork Skagit and Freshwater Slough: about 85 river miles.
60 miles of the trip are on the Skagit.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Darrington; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Darrington has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in August; winter nights fall to about 30° in January. About 83 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Darrington normally reaches 46° and falls to 35°. The record high is 67°, in 1934; the record low −3°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 2.90 in, fell in 1991.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1911 at Darrington Ranger Station, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
