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United States United States Waterfall

Sydney Falls

A 61 m drop.

When to go

Sydney Falls seen from above (Sentinel-2)
Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 by EOX IT Services GmbH (contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data), CC BY 4.0, with relief shading from Copernicus WorldDEM-30

In numbers.

61m

Height

0.48m³/s

Average flow

estimate

May

Best months

286kW

Water power

estimate

The water at Sydney Falls, month by month

It roars from November to April.

The fullest months: from November to April, with the snowmelt. The thinnest: from July to September.

  1. 0.8 m³/sJan
  2. 0.7 m³/sFeb
  3. 0.8 m³/sMar
  4. 0.7 m³/sApr
  5. 0.6 m³/sMay
  6. 0.4 m³/sJun
  7. 0.2 m³/sJul
  8. 0.1 m³/sAug
  9. 0.2 m³/sSep
  10. 0.4 m³/sOct
  11. 0.7 m³/sNov
  12. 0.8 m³/sDec
high water best months to go

From about 0.12 m³/s in the lowest month to 0.84 m³/s in the highest. Best months to go, with plenty of water and pleasant days: May.

Estimate: the timing comes from rain, snowmelt and evaporation (NASA POWER, 1991–2020); the amounts from the river model of HydroATLAS (WaterGAP, 1971–2000). Dams upstream can change the real flow.

Waterfall

Sydney Falls is a waterfall in United States. The water falls 61 m over a front 23 m wide. It lies within Mount Rainier Wilderness.

Read more on Wikipedia

Getting there.

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How big is it?

How big it really is.

61 mSydney Falls1.8 ma person9.0 ma house56 mTower of Pisa93 mStatue ofLiberty

Height of the drop from Wikidata. Buildings and the person are drawn at the same scale.

286 kW

About 0.48 m³/s falling 61 m: the power of the water as it drops.

  • enough to power about 72 homes, if it were all turned into electricity

Power of falling water = density × gravity × flow × height. Average flow and height as shown above; an estimate.

Seen from the sky.

8 × 8 km of cloud-free satellite image, with what OpenStreetMap knows around the falls.

Sydney Falls seen from above (Sentinel-2) N 2 km

Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 (EOX, CC BY 4.0), 8 × 8 km, north up. Points © OpenStreetMap contributors.

The Needle Creek through the falls
1,000 m1,200 mSydney Falls-1.5 km-1 km-0.5 km0+0.5 km+1 km+1.5 km← upstreamdownstream →

The line follows the river as mapped in OpenStreetMap; heights from the 30 m Copernicus model, which smooths narrow drops — the published height of the falls is the one above.

The valley below the falls
−690 m+690 m

Around the falls the river drops 383 m in 3.6 km. Here the river runs about 379 m below the lower rim of its valley.

What is around.

  • —viewpoints
  • 1waymarked walking routesDeer Creek Falls to Owyhigh Lakes
  • 1car parks
  • —swimming spots
  • —picnic sites
  • 1toilets
  • —information boards and visitor centres
  • —bus stops within 1 km
  • 3other named waterfalls within 4 kmChinook Cascades, Deer Creek Falls, Stafford Falls
  • —caves
  • 4campsitesDeer Creek Camp, Dewey Lake Camp, Tamanos Creek Camp and 1 more
  • —hotels, B&Bs and huts within 6 km
  • —restaurants and cafés within 3 km

Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit, up to 2 km around the falls (unless noted). A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet. © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).

Weather

The weather, month by month.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Afternoon °C014814172122181040
Night °C-6-6-4-1369961-3-6
Rain & snow (mm)173112129877452162448115168172
Wet days201720191613659162021
Sun h/day2.44.34.96.88.19.311.810.37.95.12.71.9
Snow on the ground (cm)353630154100061424

Long-term averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, with temperatures carried to the height of the falls (1,093 m) at −6.5 °C per 1,000 m. Not a forecast.

Recent years

Wet years and dry years

Rain of each month as a share of the 1991–2020 average. A wet season above 100 % usually means a fuller waterfall.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
2020157%149%63%53%147%146%74%36%145%102%111%74%
202192%160%43%27%58%87%40%45%120%93%135%95%
2022104%91%58%132%150%176%96%45%14%50%105%91%
202343%78%63%106%54%81%49%129%111%45%73%107%
2024112%84%60%68%80%127%59%137%48%69%94%113%
202535%107%99%54%57%28%266%157%73%110%90%187%

130% wetter than usual 70% drier than usual

Compare with the waterfalls nearby.

Sydney Falls

United States

  • 61 mHeight
  • 0.48 m³/sAverage flow
  • MayBest months

Comet Falls

United States

  • 116 mHeight
  • —Average flow
  • MayBest months

See the guide

Narada Falls

United States

  • 57 mHeight
  • 0.28 m³/sAverage flow
  • MayBest months

See the guide

Christine Falls

United States

  • 21 mHeight
  • 0.26 m³/sAverage flow
  • MayBest months

See the guide

About these numbers

Names, height, width, riverWikidata (Q37284) · CC0
River flow and catchmentHydroATLAS / RiverATLAS v1.0 (Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0
ClimateNASA POWER, 1991–2020
Relief, river profile, 3D modelCopernicus DEM GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA
Paths, viewpoints, parking© OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL
ImagesEOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons

Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.

The family

Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers or canyons?

Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.