The monitoring network within this area

Hydrionis holds 708 values from 3 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.

Gauges

708

Values held

1920–2026

Record spans

Gauges within the Buffalo huc8 subbasin

3 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 BUFFALO RIVER NEAR FLAT WOODS, TN

The highest instantaneous discharge the publisher recorded in each year — a flood peak as measured, not a daily average of one. 1921–2024.

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	BUFFALO RIVER NEAR FLAT WOODS, TN (m³/s)
1921	405
1922	634
1923	439
1924	504
1925	215
1926	129
1927	1,478
1928	253
1929	600
1930	261
1931	125
1932	572
1934	481
1935	445
1936	343
1937	680
1938	425
1939	215
1940	498
1942	116
1944	365
1945	648
1946	623
1947	231
1948	2,549
1949	365
1950	538
1951	470
1953	379
1954	433
1955	1,877
1956	391
1957	487
1959	208
1960	306
1961	405
1962	578
1963	354
1964	278
1965	513
1966	188
1967	748
1968	277
1969	343
1971	244
1972	158
1973	1,189
1975	1,705
1977	637
1979	510
1980	1,206
1981	131
1982	282
1984	629
1986	233
1987	343
1988	408
1989	575
1990	756
1991	2,727
1993	178
1994	629
1995	425
1996	289
1997	685
1998	776
1999	595
2000	183
2001	640
2002	835
2003	1,002
2004	838
2006	399
2007	125
2008	334
2009	561
2010	2,636
2011	566
2012	131
2013	264
2014	572
2015	394
2016	476
2017	220
2018	920
2019	886
2020	490
2021	762
2022	453
2023	273
2024	345

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	1921–2024
Completeness	87.5% of the periods in that span are held. Gaps are drawn as breaks and never interpolated.
Known gaps	13 separate periods inside 1921–2024 hold no value. They are drawn as breaks in the line and are never interpolated across.
Continuity	The record begins in 1921 and is not continuous from it: 104 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 BUFFALO RIVER NEAR FLAT WOODS, TN, as a depth

The year's flow spread over the land draining to this gauge, in millimetres — the same unit rainfall is measured in. 1921–2025.

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	BUFFALO RIVER NEAR FLAT WOODS, TN (mm)
1921	511
1922	614
1923	755
1924	423
1925	308
1926	538
1927	668
1928	416
1929	724
1930	492
1931	401
1932	872
1933	784
1934	362
1935	502
1936	451
1937	601
1938	479
1939	613
1940	422
1941	232
1942	321
1943	309
1944	749
1945	799
1946	602
1947	475
1948	787
1949	602
1950	864
1951	870
1952	523
1953	587
1954	418
1955	544
1956	487
1957	793
1958	413
1959	449
1960	466
1961	490
1962	678
1963	339
1964	691
1965	552
1966	348
1967	614
1968	513
1969	524
1970	528
1971	494
1972	708
1973	1,132
1974	855
1975	911
1976	508
1977	687
1978	515
1979	933
1980	773
1981	344
1982	649
1983	893
1984	663
1985	435
1986	373
1987	372
1988	382
1989	918
1990	656
1991	1,118
1992	532
1993	505
1994	853
1995	537
1996	628
1997	748
1998	695
1999	566
2000	365
2001	692
2002	730
2003	794
2004	758
2005	483
2006	384
2007	282
2008	458
2009	682
2010	698
2011	562
2012	387
2013	587
2014	614
2015	595
2016	434
2017	537
2018	739
2019	855
2020	921
2021	858
2022	647
2023	514
2024	441
2025	524

About this series

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	1921–2025
Completeness	100.0% of the periods in that span are held.
Continuity	Continuous: every year from 1921 to 2025 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

Every gauge Hydrionis holds within this area

Gauges within the Buffalo and what each holds
Gauge	Measures	Values	Record
BUFFALO RIVER NEAR FLAT WOODS, TN	burned area within 50 km, catchment area, annual maximum river flow, mean river flow, mean river flow, water year	351	1920–2026
BUFFALO RIVER BELOW LOBELVILLE, TN	catchment area, annual maximum river flow, mean river flow, mean river flow, water year	183	1927–2026
BUFFALO RIVER NEAR LOBELVILLE, TN	catchment area, annual maximum river flow, mean river flow, mean river flow, water year	174	1927–2026

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 — 06040004. 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
BUFFALO RIVER NEAR FLAT WOODS, TN	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
BUFFALO RIVER BELOW LOBELVILLE, TN	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
BUFFALO RIVER NEAR LOBELVILLE, TN	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 4 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	107	yes, 20 or more
Values held	708	no
Distinct measurements	5	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-03604000.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), Buffalo gauge records, accessed 2026-10-05, hydrionis.com/waters/united-states-buffalo/

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 Buffalo 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 confidence2024-03-15

Source: USGS — National Water Information System, USGS site 03604000, 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.