The Salmon Creek 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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69° on Nov. 13, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1856. Next is 68° in 1899.
Salmon Creek’s center stands about 160 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 20 ft to 330 ft, a difference of 310 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Bells Mountain, about 2,250 ft, 14 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Pliocene nonmarine rocks (conglomerate), from the Pliocene, 2.6 to 5.3 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 18×. 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, clay, volcanic. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Andesite. Age: Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 5.3 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Conglomerate. Age: Pliocene, 2.6 to 5.3 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel, silt. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Silt, sand. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 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. 3 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 Salmon Creek reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Salmon Creek and the Columbia: about 100 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Salmon Creek; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Salmon Creek has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in August; winter nights fall to about 32° in January. About 42 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Salmon Creek normally reaches 52° and falls to 36°. The record high is 68°, in 1899; the record low 15°, in 1978. The most rain on this date, 2.33 in, fell in 1966.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1856 at Vancouver 4 NNE, 2 miles south. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
