The Wilkeson 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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4.80 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1939. The next wettest, 4.53 inches, fell in 1989.
Wilkeson’s center stands about 1,130 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 490 ft to 1,740 ft, a difference of 1,250 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Bearhead Mountain, about 6,020 ft, 12 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Lower upper Eocene marine and nonmarine rocks (siltstone, sandstone), from the Middle Eocene to Late Eocene, 34 to 48 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 4×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Andesite. Age: Oligocene to Middle Miocene, 12 to 34 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granodiorite, granite. Age: Early Paleocene to Middle Miocene, 12 to 66 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Siltstone, sandstone. Age: Middle Eocene to Late Eocene, 34 to 48 million 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 Wilkeson reaches Puget Sound and the Pacific Ocean by way of Wilkeson Creek, South Prairie Creek, the Carbon and the Puyallup: about 35 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Wilkeson; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Wilkeson has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 75° in July; winter nights fall to about 32° in December. About 60 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Wilkeson normally reaches 51° and falls to 36°. The record high is 70°, in 1999; the record low 12°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 1.86 in, fell in 2001.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1939 at Mud Mountain Dam, 6 miles east-northeast, 190 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
