The Sudden Valley 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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4.67 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1949. The next wettest, 2.12 inches, fell in 2003.
Sudden Valley’s center stands about 740 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 300 ft to 2,340 ft, a difference of 2,040 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is New York Mountain, about 4,330 ft, 14 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Paleocene-Cretaceous nonmarine rocks (arkose), from the Late Cretaceous to Eocene, 34 to 100 million years old.
The section below crosses 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 7×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Arkose. Age: Late Cretaceous to Eocene, 34 to 100 million years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Silt, sand. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 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 Sudden Valley reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Beaver Creek, Austin Creek and Whatcom Creek: about 12 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Whatcom.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Sudden Valley; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Sudden Valley has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 73° in July; winter nights fall to about 34° in January. About 35 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Sudden Valley normally reaches 51° and falls to 38°. The record high is 63°, in 2004; the record low 9°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 2.78 in, fell in 2021.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1949 at Bellingham International Airport, 10 miles west-northwest, 590 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
