The monitoring network within this area

Hydrionis holds 767 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.

Gauges

767

Values held

1851–2026

Record spans

Gauges within the Lower Des Moines 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 Des Moines River at Keosauqua, IA

The highest instantaneous discharge the publisher recorded in each year — a flood peak as measured, not a daily average of one. 1851–2025.

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	Des Moines River at Keosauqua, IA (m³/s)
1851	0
1903	4,134
1904	1,252
1905	3,058
1906	954
1912	1,600
1913	753
1914	903
1915	1,914
1916	1,314
1917	1,931
1918	1,195
1919	1,286
1920	1,249
1921	767
1922	782
1923	742
1924	1,144
1925	589
1926	1,070
1927	1,237
1928	561
1929	1,184
1930	833
1931	552
1933	954
1934	280
1935	1,540
1936	762
1937	1,433
1938	711
1939	1,328
1940	442
1941	742
1943	1,000
1944	2,047
1945	1,402
1946	2,217
1947	3,511
1948	1,495
1949	898
1950	1,079
1951	1,798
1952	1,215
1953	895
1954	1,722
1956	328
1957	603
1958	957
1959	1,172
1960	2,090
1961	1,022
1962	1,455
1963	665
1964	765
1965	2,260
1966	915
1967	1,405
1968	524
1969	1,127
1970	705
1971	1,000
1972	694
1973	2,044
1974	1,090
1975	722
1976	1,923
1977	532
1978	1,150
1979	1,090
1980	1,167
1981	1,269
1982	1,923
1983	1,008
1984	1,320
1985	770
1986	1,809
1987	354
1989	445
1990	1,373
1991	1,348
1992	1,039
1993	3,143
1994	626
1995	1,385
1996	1,586
1997	966
1998	1,464
1999	1,172
2000	1,399
2001	1,461
2002	1,005
2003	643
2004	1,011
2005	782
2006	555
2007	2,073
2008	3,002
2009	1,195
2010	2,554
2011	1,979
2012	637
2013	2,339
2014	1,359
2015	1,628
2017	1,308
2018	991
2019	2,588
2020	1,062
2021	1,699
2022	623
2023	756
2024	1,354
2025	934

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	1851–2025
Completeness	65.1% of the periods in that span are held. Gaps are drawn as breaks and never interpolated.
Known gaps	7 separate periods inside 1851–2025 hold no value. The longest runs from 1852 to 1902 — 51 years with no reading. They are drawn as breaks in the line and are never interpolated across.
Continuity	The record begins in 1851 and is not continuous from it: 175 years separate the first value from the last, and 65% 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 Des Moines River at Keosauqua, IA, as a depth

The year's flow spread over the land draining to this gauge, in millimetres — the same unit rainfall is measured in. 1970–2025.

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	Des Moines River at Keosauqua, IA (mm)
1970	114
1971	129
1972	166
1973	446
1974	226
1975	152
1976	102
1977	61.0
1978	163
1979	265
1980	100
1981	86.0
1982	312
1983	373
1984	343
1985	123
1986	331
1987	177
1988	52.0
1989	33.0
1990	202
1991	304
1992	268
1993	631
1994	148
1995	232
1996	212
1997	191
1998	294
1999	243
2000	63.0
2001	244
2002	106
2003	136
2004	195
2005	159
2006	121
2007	367
2008	420
2009	297
2010	600
2011	290
2012	63.0
2013	195
2014	247
2015	356
2016	363
2017	229
2018	432
2019	467
2020	196
2021	95.0
2022	105
2023	85.0
2024	210
2025	202

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	1970–2025
Completeness	100.0% of the periods in that span are held.
Continuity	Continuous: every year from 1970 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 Lower Des Moines and what each holds
Gauge	Measures	Values	Record
Des Moines River at Ottumwa, IA	burned area within 50 km, catchment area, annual maximum river flow, mean river flow, mean river flow, water year	257	1903–2026
Des Moines River near Tracy, IA	burned area within 50 km, catchment area, annual maximum river flow, mean river flow, mean river flow, water year	253	1903–2026
Des Moines River at Keosauqua, IA	catchment area, annual maximum river flow, mean river flow, mean river flow, water year	232	1851–2026
Sugar Creek near Keokuk, IA	catchment area, annual maximum river flow	25	1905–2026

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 — 07100009. 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
Des Moines River at Ottumwa, IA	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
Des Moines River near Tracy, IA	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
Des Moines River at Keosauqua, IA	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
Sugar Creek near Keokuk, IA	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	176	yes, 20 or more
Values held	767	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-05489500.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), Lower Des Moines gauge records, accessed 2026-10-05, hydrionis.com/waters/united-states-lower-des-moines/

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 Lower Des Moines 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 confidence2025-08-08

Source: USGS — National Water Information System, USGS site 05489500, 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.