The Rochester 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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5.38 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1948. The next wettest, 5.30 inches, fell in 2015.
Rochester’s center stands about 140 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 100 ft to 670 ft, a difference of 570 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Larch Mountain, about 2,690 ft, 12 miles north.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 9×. 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: Early Paleocene to Middle Eocene, 40 to 64 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Early Eocene to Middle Eocene, 38 to 56 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Silt, sand. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Middle Eocene to Early Miocene, 16 to 48 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.
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. 2 smaller units 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 Rochester reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Scatter Creek and the Chehalis: about 60 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Rochester; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Rochester has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 78° in July; winter nights fall to about 32° in February. About 51 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 4 inches of snow.
On November 14 Rochester normally reaches 51° and falls to 36°. The record high is 65°, in 1995; the record low 3°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 3.64 in, fell in 2001.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 from the Olympia Area threaded record (Olympia Airport, 14 miles northeast). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
