Rivers and flooding
River levels and flood stages at every gauge the National Weather Service watches, with forecasts, flood impacts, every recorded crest, annual peaks and the full daily record from the U.S. Geological Survey.
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What is here
- Now
- Stage and flow at more than twelve thousand NWS gauges, colored by flood category, updated every few minutes. Flood warnings, and NOAA's National Water Model maps of high flow, rapid onset flooding and flooded area.
- Forecast
- The official River Forecast Center hydrograph, the forecast crest and its flood category, National Water Model forecasts to 30 days for any stream, ensemble exceedance chances, and the seasonal chance of flooding.
- Impacts
- Every impact statement NOAA holds for the gauge, from the first flooded road to the levee overtopping, set against the current stage, the forecast crest and the record.
- History
- Every crest on NOAA's list, every annual peak in the USGS peak-flow file, every daily mean on record, where today sits among all past years on the same date, and every hand measurement of the river.
Common questions
What is the difference between stage and flow?
Stage is the height of the water surface above a fixed zero at the gauge, in feet. Flow is the volume passing the gauge, in cubic feet per second. A gauge measures stage continuously; flow is computed from it through a rating curve that hydrographers build and check by measuring the river by hand. Both are shown, and the rating itself is plotted from those measurements.
Why do NOAA and the USGS both appear?
They do different jobs. The USGS operates most stream gauges and keeps their records. The National Weather Service sets flood stages at the gauges where flooding matters to people, writes the impact statements, and issues the forecasts. Most forecast points are USGS gauges, and a gauge page here joins the two.
How rare is a given flood?
Each gauge page counts how many years' annual peaks have reached a level, from that gauge's own record. That is an empirical frequency, not the fitted flood-frequency estimate the USGS publishes from a formal analysis, and it is labeled as such.