The Spanaway 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.
Spanaway’s center stands about 370 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 290 ft to 490 ft, a difference of 200 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Spar Pole Hill, about 1,900 ft, 14 miles east-southeast.
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 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 23×. 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 14 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Silt, sand. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 0.4 mi of the line.
Quartz-monzonite, granite, basalt. Age: Eocene to Early Pliocene, 3.6 to 56 million years old. About 0.4 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 Spanaway reaches Puget Sound and the Pacific Ocean by way of Morey Creek, Clover Creek and Chambers Creek: about 13 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Spanaway; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Spanaway 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 Spanaway 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, 9 miles east-northeast, 200 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
