The Federal Way 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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3.80 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1945. The next wettest, 3.18 inches, fell in 2015.
Federal Way’s center stands about 470 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 40 ft to 520 ft, a difference of 480 ft: hilly country. Open water lies within three miles. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Cedar Mountain, about 910 ft, 13 miles northeast.
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 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 32×. 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 6 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Silt, sand. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Late Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 3.6 million years old. About 2 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 Federal Way runs straight into Puget Sound and the Pacific Ocean.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Federal Way; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Federal Way has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 78° in August; winter nights fall to about 37° in December. A normal year brings about 6 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 39 inches of water.
On November 14 Federal Way normally reaches 52° and falls to 41°. The record high is 65°, in 1995; the record low 9°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 2.61 in, fell in 2001.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1945 from the Seattle Tacoma Area threaded record (Seattle Tacoma Airport, 8 miles north, 100 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
