HydrionisGlobal Water Intelligence
HUC8 subbasin

Colorado Headwaters-Plateau

2 monitoring stations within this area in United States, holding 307 values between 1922 and 2026. A United States federal hydrologic unit at the eight-digit subbasin level — a drainage area, not a river. Many subbasins take the name of the largest river within them, and the gauges below are anywhere inside the area, including on tributaries.

United StatesHUC8 subbasin

The monitoring network within this area

Hydrionis holds 307 values from 2 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.

2
Gauges
307
Values held
1922–2026
Record spans
Gauges within the Colorado Headwaters-Plateau huc8 subbasin
2 monitoring points, positioned as the publisher records them.
Gauges within the Colorado Headwaters-Plateau huc8 subbasinPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO., BUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, COPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO.BUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO

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 BUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO
The highest instantaneous discharge the publisher recorded in each year — a flood peak as measured, not a daily average of one. 1922–1980.
Largest measured flow of each year at BUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, COLargest measured flow of each year at BUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO: BUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO in m³/s, from 1922 to 1980.02040m³/s19221930193819461954196219701978BUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1922: 27.2 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1923: 21.0 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1924: 17.8 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1925: 9.77 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1926: 15.1 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1927: 18.3 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1928: 21.9 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1929: 26.6 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1930: 10.9 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1931: 13.5 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1932: 22.4 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1933: 21.7 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1934: 3.88 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1935: 13.8 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1936: 13.5 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1937: 17.9 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1938: 24.8 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1939: 9.00 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1940: 9.77 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1941: 46.2 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1942: 39.6 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1943: 9.68 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1944: 43.3 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1945: 19.2 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1946: 12.7 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1947: 25.4 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1948: 26.3 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1949: 13.8 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1950: 9.80 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1951: 6.91 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1952: 25.9 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1953: 14.2 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1954: 5.21 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1955: 10.1 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1956: 7.53 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1957: 27.4 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1958: 29.4 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1959: 7.59 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1960: 15.9 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1961: 9.00 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1962: 25.5 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1963: 4.25 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1964: 21.5 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1965: 17.3 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1966: 7.36 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1967: 6.06 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1968: 24.4 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1969: 15.1 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1970: 32.8 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1971: 19.3 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1972: 6.06 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1973: 35.7 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1974: 17.4 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1975: 32.0 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1976: 7.76 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1977: 3.57 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1978: 14.8 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1979: 24.9 m³/sBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO 1980: 17.8 m³/s

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 (0 events)

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
PeriodBUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO (m³/s)
192227.2
192321.0
192417.8
19259.77
192615.1
192718.3
192821.9
192926.6
193010.9
193113.5
193222.4
193321.7
19343.88
193513.8
193613.5
193717.9
193824.8
19399.00
19409.77
194146.2
194239.6
19439.68
194443.3
194519.2
194612.7
194725.4
194826.3
194913.8
19509.80
19516.91
195225.9
195314.2
19545.21
195510.1
19567.53
195727.4
195829.4
19597.59
196015.9
19619.00
196225.5
19634.25
196421.5
196517.3
19667.36
19676.06
196824.4
196915.1
197032.8
197119.3
19726.06
197335.7
197417.4
197532.0
19767.76
19773.57
197814.8
197924.9
198017.8

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 existMeasured
Period held1922–1980
Completeness100.0% of the periods in that span are held.
ContinuityContinuous: every year from 1922 to 1980 is held.
Last read from the publisher2026-08-31
RedistributionPermitted by the upstream licences
Commercial reusePermitted by the upstream licences. No Hydrionis access tier can widen this.
MethodologyHow 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 PLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, 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. 1922–1979.
Water leaving the catchment above PLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO., as a depthWater leaving the catchment above PLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO., as a depth: PLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. in mm, from 1922 to 1979.0200400600800mm19221930193819461954196219701978PLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1922: 682 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1923: 518 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1924: 374 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1925: 372 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1926: 482 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1927: 542 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1928: 559 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1929: 693 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1930: 443 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1931: 256 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1932: 603 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1933: 356 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1934: 129 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1935: 330 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1936: 289 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1937: 377 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1938: 623 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1939: 241 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1940: 247 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1941: 532 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1942: 494 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1943: 341 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1944: 521 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1945: 472 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1946: 323 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1947: 442 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1948: 372 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1949: 372 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1950: 332 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1951: 215 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1952: 506 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1953: 267 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1954: 216 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1955: 265 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1956: 235 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1957: 592 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1958: 381 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1959: 181 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1960: 242 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1961: 128 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1962: 316 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1963: 67.0 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1964: 104 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1965: 150 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1966: 102 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1967: 77.0 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1968: 121 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1969: 145 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1970: 146 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1971: 144 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1972: 70.0 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1973: 283 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1974: 78.0 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1975: 165 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1976: 92.0 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1977: 46.0 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1978: 87.0 mmPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. 1979: 203 mm

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 (0 events)

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
PeriodPLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO. (mm)
1922682
1923518
1924374
1925372
1926482
1927542
1928559
1929693
1930443
1931256
1932603
1933356
1934129
1935330
1936289
1937377
1938623
1939241
1940247
1941532
1942494
1943341
1944521
1945472
1946323
1947442
1948372
1949372
1950332
1951215
1952506
1953267
1954216
1955265
1956235
1957592
1958381
1959181
1960242
1961128
1962316
196367.0
1964104
1965150
1966102
196777.0
1968121
1969145
1970146
1971144
197270.0
1973283
197478.0
1975165
197692.0
197746.0
197887.0
1979203

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 existDerived Computed by Hydrionis
Period held1922–1979
Completeness100.0% of the periods in that span are held.
ContinuityContinuous: every year from 1922 to 1979 is held.
Last read from the publisher2026-08-24
RedistributionPermitted by the upstream licences
Commercial reusePermitted by the upstream licences. No Hydrionis access tier can widen this.
MethodologyHow this was produced

Every gauge Hydrionis holds within this area

GaugeMeasuresValuesRecord
BUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, COburned area within 50 km, catchment area, annual maximum river flow, mean river flow1541922–2026
PLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, CO.burned area within 50 km, catchment area, annual maximum river flow, mean river flow1531922–2026

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 — 14010005. 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.

GaugeEvidenceEstablished
BUZZARD CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, COStated 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/42026-08-26
PLATEAU CREEK NEAR COLLBRAN, 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/42026-08-26

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 3 of them, which makes it a full profile.

SignalHeldCounts
Gauges holding a real record2no
Years spanned105yes, 20 or more
Values held307no
Distinct measurements4yes, 2 or more
Publishers measuring it2yes, 2 or more
Official identifiers1recorded, not counted

Use this data

Use this data

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), Colorado Headwaters-Plateau gauge records, accessed 2026-09-02, hydrionis.com/waters/united-states-colorado-headwaters-plateau/

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 Colorado Headwaters-Plateau 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 confidence1980-05-24

Source: USGS — National Water Information System, USGS site 09097500, 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 31 August 2026.

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