The Vancouver 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.
Showers likely
Showers likely
Chance of showers
Chance of showers
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
71° on Nov. 13, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1940. Next is 68° in 1976.
Vancouver’s center stands about 180 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 310 ft, a difference of 310 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Livingston Mountain, about 1,980 ft, 14 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Quaternary nonmarine deposits (sandstone, clay, volcanic), from the Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 17×. 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 13 mi of the line.
Sandstone-mudstone. Age: Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 5.3 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.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Silt, sand, gravel. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 1 smaller unit 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 Vancouver reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Burnt Bridge Creek and the Columbia: about 110 river miles.
Lake on the way: Vancouver Lake.
85 miles of the trip are on the Columbia.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Vancouver; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Vancouver has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 36° in January. About 37 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 4 inches of snow.
On November 14 Vancouver normally reaches 54° and falls to 41°. The record high is 67°, in 2001; the record low 15°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 1.28 in, fell in 1948.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1940 from the Portland Area threaded record (Portland International Airport, 4 miles southeast, 160 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
