The Ocosta 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.
5.19 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1953. The next wettest, 4.50 inches, fell in 1954.
Ocosta’s center stands about 60 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 310 ft, a difference of 310 ft: rolling country. Open water lies within three miles. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Saddle Hill, about 290 ft, 13 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvium (silt, sand), from the Holocene, less than 12,000 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 26×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gravel, sand. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Silt, sand. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 1 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 Ocosta runs straight into the Pacific Ocean.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Ocosta; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Ocosta has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 68° in August; winter nights fall to about 37° in December. About 69 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Ocosta normally reaches 52° and falls to 40°. The record high is 65°, in 1995; the record low 13°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 1.83 in, fell in 2001.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1953 at Hoquiam Bowerman Airport, 8 miles northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.