The monitoring network within this area

Hydrionis holds 2,063 values from 4 gauges within it. Discharge is a property of a gauge and its reach, not of this drainage area, so this page reports the network and its records rather than a single figure.

4

Gauges

2,063

Values held

1895–2026

Record spans

Gauges within the Arkansas Headwaters huc8 subbasin

4 monitoring points, positioned as the publisher records them.

Flood peaks, as measured

This gauge's flood record, as measured. Unlike a daily mean it is the discharge at the moment the river was highest, which is the figure flood frequency analysis is built on.

Largest measured flow of each year at ARKANSAS RIVER AT GRANITE, CO.

The highest instantaneous discharge the publisher recorded in each year — a flood peak as measured, not a daily average of one. 1897–2007.

Show relevant events (1 event)Shading marks when something was recorded, not what caused the line.

Published by the gauge's own operator from its sub-daily record; Hydrionis stores the figure rather than recomputing it. A year the gauge did not cover produces no value rather than a low one, and the gaps are stated below the chart. A peak is a property of this gauge and its reach: a larger flood upstream or downstream of it is not in this series.

What the shaded periods are (1 event)

A shaded period marks when something was recorded, not what caused the shape of the line. Where the two coincide, they coincided.

Documented record — A documented event, compiled from cited sources after it happened. The dates are as good as the record, which for older events can mean the month rather than the day.

Event	Type	Period	Standing	Authority
Hurricane Katrina water and sanitation collapse	Flood	2005-08-29 – 2005-09-30	Documented record	Compiled record

Not shown on this chart

The 1976 drought — This event’s area does not contain this chart’s subject. Sharing a country is not sharing an event, so it is not drawn.
The 2022 drought — This event’s area does not contain this chart’s subject. Sharing a country is not sharing an event, so it is not drawn.
Yorkshire drought — This event’s area does not contain this chart’s subject. Sharing a country is not sharing an event, so it is not drawn.
Cantareira water crisis, São Paulo — This event’s area does not contain this chart’s subject. Sharing a country is not sharing an event, so it is not drawn.
Cape Town Day Zero — This event’s area does not contain this chart’s subject. Sharing a country is not sharing an event, so it is not drawn.
European drought — This event’s area does not contain this chart’s subject. Sharing a country is not sharing an event, so it is not drawn.

View the data behind this chart

Underlying data
Period	ARKANSAS RIVER AT GRANITE, CO. (m³/s)
1897	68.2
1910	51.3
1911	53.0
1912	59.5
1913	48.1
1914	57.8
1915	46.2
1916	47.0
1917	71.9
1918	74.5
1919	34.8
1920	50.1
1921	37.9
1922	47.6
1923	43.3
1924	82.1
1925	32.8
1926	47.9
1927	53.2
1928	41.6
1929	46.7
1930	42.5
1931	24.8
1932	45.6
1933	59.7
1934	28.9
1935	48.1
1936	51.8
1937	51.5
1938	65.7
1939	48.1
1940	33.4
1941	58.3
1942	58.0
1943	54.7
1944	50.1
1945	42.8
1946	63.1
1947	82.1
1948	65.1
1949	66.8
1950	64.8
1951	56.6
1952	103
1953	76.5
1954	42.8
1955	35.4
1956	78.2
1957	152
1958	64.3
1959	49.6
1960	64.3
1961	43.3
1962	61.7
1963	39.1
1964	60.6
1965	73.3
1966	41.6
1967	58.9
1968	65.1
1969	56.1
1970	80.1
1971	66.5
1972	71.9
1973	76.5
1974	51.3
1975	74.8
1976	49.6
1977	30.0
1978	84.1
1979	76.7
1980	101
1981	49.8
1982	51.8
1983	102
1984	86.6
1985	94.0
1986	74.8
1987	69.7
1988	44.5
1990	64.8
1991	51.8
1992	37.4
1993	69.1
1994	54.1
1995	88.9
1996	88.1
1997	78.7
1998	70.8
1999	57.2
2000	66.3
2001	48.4
2002	12.7
2003	62.9
2004	45.6
2005	43.6
2006	59.2
2007	50.1

About this series

Everything below is a property of the data rather than a rating of it. There is deliberately no single confidence score: how much a gap matters depends on what you are about to do with the series, and only you know that.

Source	United States Geological Survey — National Water Information System · US Government work — public domain
How the values came to exist	Measured
Period held	1897–2007
Completeness	88.3% of the periods in that span are held. Gaps are drawn as breaks and never interpolated.
Known gaps	2 separate periods inside 1897–2007 hold no value. The longest runs from 1898 to 1909 — 12 years with no reading. They are drawn as breaks in the line and are never interpolated across.
Continuity	The record begins in 1897 and is not continuous from it: 111 years separate the first value from the last, and 88% of the years between them are held. The span is not the record.
Last read from the publisher	2026-10-01
Redistribution	Permitted by the upstream licences
Commercial reuse	Permitted by the upstream licences. No Hydrionis access tier can widen this.
Methodology	How this was produced

How much of the rain came back out

A discharge in cubic metres per second cannot be compared with anything: the larger number may only mean the larger catchment. Divided by the area draining to the gauge it becomes a depth of water over that land, which answers a question a reader already has — of the rain that fell here, how much came back out as river?

Water leaving the catchment above ARKANSAS RIVER AT GRANITE, CO., as a depth

The year's flow spread over the land draining to this gauge, in millimetres — the same unit rainfall is measured in. 1911–2006.

Show relevant events (1 event)Shading marks when something was recorded, not what caused the line.

Computed by Hydrionis from the published annual mean flow and the catchment area the station's own publisher states. It is not a water balance: the difference between rainfall and runoff is not evaporation alone but also change in groundwater storage, water abstracted and taken elsewhere, and water imported by transfer schemes — which is why a catchment can yield more runoff than the rain that fell on it without anything being measured wrongly. A different area figure rescales every value here by the ratio between them.

What the shaded periods are (1 event)

A shaded period marks when something was recorded, not what caused the shape of the line. Where the two coincide, they coincided.

Documented record — A documented event, compiled from cited sources after it happened. The dates are as good as the record, which for older events can mean the month rather than the day.

Event	Type	Period	Standing	Authority
Hurricane Katrina water and sanitation collapse	Flood	2005-08-29 – 2005-09-30	Documented record	Compiled record

Not shown on this chart

The 1976 drought — This event’s area does not contain this chart’s subject. Sharing a country is not sharing an event, so it is not drawn.
The 2022 drought — This event’s area does not contain this chart’s subject. Sharing a country is not sharing an event, so it is not drawn.
Yorkshire drought — This event’s area does not contain this chart’s subject. Sharing a country is not sharing an event, so it is not drawn.
Cantareira water crisis, São Paulo — This event’s area does not contain this chart’s subject. Sharing a country is not sharing an event, so it is not drawn.
Cape Town Day Zero — This event’s area does not contain this chart’s subject. Sharing a country is not sharing an event, so it is not drawn.
European drought — This event’s area does not contain this chart’s subject. Sharing a country is not sharing an event, so it is not drawn.

View the data behind this chart

Underlying data
Period	ARKANSAS RIVER AT GRANITE, CO. (mm)
1911	296
1912	290
1913	250
1914	300
1915	193
1916	371
1917	334
1918	290
1919	244
1920	310
1921	257
1922	283
1923	277
1924	321
1925	221
1926	283
1927	319
1928	292
1929	291
1930	261
1931	153
1932	246
1933	223
1934	153
1935	244
1936	346
1937	234
1938	334
1939	284
1940	191
1941	245
1942	242
1943	361
1944	267
1945	257
1946	318
1947	372
1948	321
1949	338
1950	267
1951	341
1952	404
1953	319
1954	192
1955	217
1956	279
1957	420
1958	308
1959	282
1960	318
1961	268
1962	426
1963	233
1964	273
1965	403
1966	289
1967	269
1968	344
1969	324
1970	435
1971	388
1972	384
1973	360
1974	383
1975	412
1976	322
1977	151
1978	382
1979	450
1980	442
1981	274
1982	427
1983	472
1984	576
1985	454
1986	410
1987	250
1988	207
1989	322
1990	244
1991	291
1992	274
1993	450
1994	304
1995	483
1996	408
1997	423
1998	321
1999	317
2000	320
2001	260
2002	116
2003	216
2004	179
2005	212
2006	323

About this series

Everything below is a property of the data rather than a rating of it. There is deliberately no single confidence score: how much a gap matters depends on what you are about to do with the series, and only you know that.

Source	United States Geological Survey — National Water Information System · US Government work — public domain
How the values came to exist	Derived Computed by Hydrionis
Period held	1911–2006
Completeness	100.0% of the periods in that span are held.
Continuity	Continuous: every year from 1911 to 2006 is held.
Inputs last read	2026-10-01 · when the records this was computed from were last read from their publishers
Calculation date	2026-08-24 · when the calculation method was last versioned, not a reading of any publisher
Redistribution	Permitted by the upstream licences
Commercial reuse	Permitted by the upstream licences. No Hydrionis access tier can widen this.
Methodology	How this was produced

The snow standing above this water

3 automated snow stations sit inside this drainage area, weighing the snowpack rather than measuring how deep it is.

449

Fullest snowpack recorded at Brumley, in 1995 (mm of water)

107

Thinnest, in 2026 (mm of water)

April

Month the pack is usually at its fullest

June

Month the pack has gone by, in half of years

Peak snowpack at Brumley

Water years 1981–2026. Each point is the fullest month of that snow season.

A water year runs October to September and is named for the year it ends, so the snow of one winter stays in one point. The value is the fullest month, not the fullest day: a pack that peaked sharply mid-month reads lower here than a single measurement taken at the right moment would.

View the data behind this chart

Underlying data
Period	Brumley (mm)
1981	141
1982	314
1983	246
1984	407
1985	248
1986	254
1987	202
1988	212
1989	214
1990	222
1991	274
1992	193
1993	403
1994	269
1995	449
1996	401
1997	336
1998	276
1999	199
2000	214
2001	256
2002	152
2003	245
2004	131
2005	202
2006	299
2007	246
2008	419
2009	280
2010	259
2011	386
2012	152
2013	240
2014	336
2015	279
2016	295
2017	343
2018	223
2019	371
2020	339
2021	239
2022	211
2023	256
2024	290
2025	243
2026	107

Read against the river

Brumley and ARKANSAS RIVER AT GRANITE, CO. both sit in this drainage area, and their records overlap by 25 years. That is the span the two have in common, not a count of years both actually hold — either record may have gaps inside it. The two are shown separately rather than on one axis: millimetres of stored water and cubic metres per second are not commensurable, and a difference between them would mean nothing.

Being in the same drainage area does not put the snowpack upstream of the gauge. A subbasin is an area, and snow on one tributary can join the river below a gauge on another — so a weak relationship here may say more about which tributary was measured than about the snow.

Every gauge Hydrionis holds within this area

Gauges within the Arkansas Headwaters and what each holds
Gauge	Measures	Values	Record
ARKANSAS RIVER AT GRANITE, CO.	burned area within 50 km, catchment area, annual maximum river flow, mean river flow, mean river flow, water year	327	1897–2026
ARKANSAS RIVER AT SALIDA, CO.	burned area within 50 km, catchment area, annual maximum river flow, mean river flow, mean river flow, water year	254	1895–2026
GRAPE CREEK NEAR WESTCLIFFE, CO.	burned area within 50 km, catchment area, annual maximum river flow, mean river flow, mean river flow, water year	233	1925–2026
COTTONWOOD C BL HOT SPRINGS, NR BUENA VISTA, CO.	catchment area, annual maximum river flow	49	1912–2026

How these gauges were attached to this water

Assigned by the publisher to a numbered basin Every gauge here is assigned to this drainage area by its own publisher, which issues the area an official code — 11020001. A drainage area is not a river: it contains the tributaries as well as the main channel, and a gauge in it may be on any of them.

What each gauge’s link to this water rests on
Gauge	Evidence	Established
ARKANSAS RIVER AT GRANITE, CO.	Stated by the publisher — USGS site service, huc_cd field — https://waterservices.usgs.gov/nwis/site/ ; named from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset 8-digit HU (Subbasin) layer — https://hydro.nationalmap.gov/arcgis/rest/services/wbd/MapServer/4	2026-10-02
ARKANSAS RIVER AT SALIDA, CO.	Stated by the publisher — USGS site service, huc_cd field — https://waterservices.usgs.gov/nwis/site/ ; named from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset 8-digit HU (Subbasin) layer — https://hydro.nationalmap.gov/arcgis/rest/services/wbd/MapServer/4	2026-10-02
GRAPE CREEK NEAR WESTCLIFFE, CO.	Stated by the publisher — USGS site service, huc_cd field — https://waterservices.usgs.gov/nwis/site/ ; named from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset 8-digit HU (Subbasin) layer — https://hydro.nationalmap.gov/arcgis/rest/services/wbd/MapServer/4	2026-10-02
COTTONWOOD C BL HOT SPRINGS, NR BUENA VISTA, CO.	Stated by the publisher — USGS site service, huc_cd field — https://waterservices.usgs.gov/nwis/site/ ; named from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset 8-digit HU (Subbasin) layer — https://hydro.nationalmap.gov/arcgis/rest/services/wbd/MapServer/4	2026-10-02

What this record holds

Hydrionis decides which waters get a page, and which of those are offered to search, from what is actually held rather than from how the page reads. Five signals are counted; this record has 5 of them, which makes it a full profile.

Information-gain signals held for this water body
Signal	Held	Counts
Gauges holding a real record	3	yes, 3 or more
Years spanned	132	yes, 20 or more
Values held	2,063	yes, 1000 or more
Distinct measurements	6	yes, 2 or more
Publishers measuring it	2	yes, 2 or more
Official identifiers	1	recorded, not counted

Use this data

Machine-readable JSON /api/v1/observations/by-subject/gauge-usgs-07086000.json
How to cite this, and who you must credit
How these figures were produced
Request this at a different scale, format or geography

No bulk download is offered here, which is a licence position rather than a product one: at least one contributing publisher does not permit redistribution. The values can be read on the page, cited, and pointed to at source.

Attribution and citation

Suggested citation for Hydrionis

Hydrionis (2026), Arkansas Headwaters gauge records, accessed 2026-10-05, hydrionis.com/waters/united-states-arkansas-headwaters/

Cite Hydrionis where you rely on values Hydrionis computed, on the method that produced them, or on the compilation itself. The underlying measurements remain the publishers’ and their attribution requirements apply to you directly.

Recommended, not required. Hydrionis does not claim rights over unmodified public data it relayed, and doing arithmetic on somebody else’s measurements does not make them Hydrionis’s. Cite the version and the access date: the Arkansas Headwaters gauge records changes as publishers release and as methods are revised, and a citation without both cannot be checked later. Full guidance is on cite and reuse.

None of the contributing licences requires attribution. Crediting the publishers is still good practice and they are listed above.

Where these figures come from

MeasuredHigh confidence2007-06-19

Source: USGS — National Water Information System, USGS site 07086000, annual peak streamflow. Licence: Open.

Method: The instantaneous maximum discharge of each water year as published by USGS, dated to the day it occurred. One value per October-to-September water year; where the publisher lists both a systematic and a historic peak for a year, the larger is the annual maximum. Values the publisher marks as maximum daily averages are not held here, because they are not instantaneous peaks. Values marked as bounded rather than measured are held as censored observations carrying the bound. Cubic feet per second are converted to cubic metres per second and the publisher unit is recorded alongside.

Rating curves are extrapolated at extreme discharges, so the largest values in a peak series carry the largest measurement uncertainty. Data from the U.S. Geological Survey National Water Information System, a work of the United States government and therefore in the public domain.

Retrieved 1 October 2026.