The Long Beach 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.
5.39 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1887. The next wettest, 5.30 inches, fell in 2015.
Long Beach’s center stands about 17 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 250 ft, a difference of 250 ft: rolling country. Open water lies within three miles. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Bear Mountain, about 1,010 ft, 12 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Eolian deposits (sand), from the Holocene, less than 12,000 years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 13×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Middle Eocene to Early Miocene, 16 to 48 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate, conglomerate-sandstone. Age: Late Eocene to Miocene, 5.3 to 38 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Silt, sand. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
Quartz-monzonite, granite, basalt. Age: Eocene to Early Pliocene, 3.6 to 56 million years old. About 0.7 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 Long Beach runs straight into the Pacific Ocean.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Long Beach; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Long Beach has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 69° in August; winter nights fall to about 37° in February. About 70 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Long Beach normally reaches 54° and falls to 40°. The record high is 64°, in 2001; the record low 15°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 2.78 in, fell in 2015.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1887 from the Astoria Area threaded record (Astoria Airport (Port Of), 16 miles south-southeast). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.