The South 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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3.67 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1941. The next wettest, 3.42 inches, fell in 2001.
South Creek’s center stands about 480 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 400 ft to 750 ft, a difference of 350 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Bald Hill, about 2,060 ft, 13 miles south.
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 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 12×. 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 13 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Silt, sand. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Andesite. Age: Late Eocene to Early Oligocene, 28 to 38 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.6 mi of the line.
Quartz-monzonite, granite, basalt. Age: Eocene to Early Pliocene, 3.6 to 56 million years old. About 0.3 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.
A raindrop that lands in South Creek reaches Puget Sound and the Pacific Ocean by way of South Creek, Muck Creek and the Nisqually: about 30 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of South Creek; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
South Creek has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 77° in August; winter nights fall to about 33° in January. A normal year brings about 6 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 45 inches of water.
On November 14 South Creek normally reaches 51° and falls to 36°. The record high is 63°, in 1975; the record low 4°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 2.35 in, fell in 2001.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1941 at Mcmillin Reservoir, 11 miles northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
