The monitoring network within this area

Hydrionis holds 1,267 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

1,267

Values held

1905–2026

Record spans

Gauges within the Lower John Day huc8 subbasin

2 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 JOHN DAY RIVER AT MCDONALD FERRY, OR

The highest instantaneous discharge the publisher recorded in each year — a flood peak as measured, not a daily average of one. 1905–2025.

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	JOHN DAY RIVER AT MCDONALD FERRY, OR (m³/s)
1905	152
1906	396
1907	787
1908	331
1910	462
1911	232
1912	405
1913	388
1914	314
1915	166
1916	535
1917	640
1918	317
1919	487
1920	357
1921	521
1922	464
1923	297
1924	260
1925	425
1926	232
1927	365
1928	354
1929	234
1930	96.8
1931	334
1932	759
1933	228
1935	220
1936	280
1937	377
1938	388
1939	396
1940	354
1941	178
1942	337
1943	433
1944	187
1945	247
1947	194
1948	651
1949	354
1950	235
1951	394
1952	648
1953	447
1954	202
1955	221
1956	705
1957	402
1958	464
1959	177
1960	286
1961	184
1962	286
1963	490
1964	272
1966	174
1967	328
1968	188
1969	377
1970	804
1971	623
1972	745
1973	137
1974	682
1975	402
1976	297
1977	106
1978	493
1979	552
1980	289
1981	368
1982	801
1983	671
1984	507
1985	413
1986	827
1987	337
1988	176
1989	612
1990	194
1991	702
1993	759
1994	242
1995	371
1996	886
1998	481
1999	382
2000	283
2001	184
2002	345
2003	233
2004	343
2005	416
2006	408
2007	196
2008	433
2009	345
2010	578
2011	903
2012	405
2013	207
2014	569
2016	343
2017	515
2018	223
2019	869
2020	532
2021	148
2022	357
2023	575
2024	408
2025	572

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	1905–2025
Completeness	94.2% of the periods in that span are held. Gaps are drawn as breaks and never interpolated.
Known gaps	7 separate periods inside 1905–2025 hold no value. They are drawn as breaks in the line and are never interpolated across.
Continuity	The record begins in 1905 and is not continuous from it: 121 years separate the first value from the last, and 94% 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 JOHN DAY RIVER AT MCDONALD FERRY, OR, as a depth

The year's flow spread over the land draining to this gauge, in millimetres — the same unit rainfall is measured in. 1906–2024.

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	JOHN DAY RIVER AT MCDONALD FERRY, OR (mm)
1906	93.0
1907	132
1908	60.0
1909	67.0
1910	91.0
1911	58.0
1912	153
1913	112
1914	93.0
1915	48.0
1916	149
1917	144
1918	82.0
1919	88.0
1920	92.0
1921	171
1922	124
1923	89.0
1924	50.0
1925	94.0
1926	51.0
1927	114
1928	106
1929	61.0
1930	33.0
1931	37.0
1932	104
1933	75.0
1934	27.0
1935	41.0
1936	55.0
1937	75.0
1938	96.0
1939	58.0
1940	71.0
1941	83.0
1942	124
1943	145
1944	37.0
1945	83.0
1946	102
1947	78.0
1948	162
1949	98.0
1950	108
1951	115
1952	106
1953	121
1954	72.0
1955	71.0
1956	151
1957	114
1958	140
1959	69.0
1960	72.0
1961	60.0
1962	87.0
1963	91.0
1964	85.0
1965	144
1966	44.0
1967	78.0
1968	40.0
1969	105
1970	111
1971	109
1972	123
1973	64.0
1974	144
1975	109
1976	87.0
1977	36.0
1978	96.0
1979	127
1980	96.0
1981	98.0
1982	175
1983	187
1984	220
1985	99.0
1986	123
1987	72.0
1988	48.0
1989	122
1990	51.0
1991	80.0
1992	35.0
1993	146
1994	50.0
1995	128
1998	114
1999	117
2000	80.0
2001	42.0
2002	58.0
2003	71.0
2004	96.0
2005	60.0
2006	129
2007	63.0
2008	108
2009	84.0
2010	87.0
2011	183
2012	80.0
2013	59.0
2014	85.0
2015	59.0
2016	81.0
2017	140
2018	56.0
2019	126
2020	70.0
2021	46.0
2022	75.0
2023	92.0
2024	99.0

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	1906–2024
Completeness	98.3% of the periods in that span are held. Gaps are drawn as breaks and never interpolated.
Known gaps	One period inside 1906–2024 holds no value: 1996 to 1997, 2 years with no reading. It is drawn as a break in the line and is never interpolated across.
Continuity	The record begins in 1906 and is not continuous from it: 119 years separate the first value from the last, and 98% of the years between them are held. The span is not the record.
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

1 automated snow station sits inside this drainage area, weighing the snowpack rather than measuring how deep it is.

279

Fullest snowpack recorded at Madison Butte, in 1993 (mm of water)

4

Thinnest, in 2026 (mm of water)

February

Month the pack is usually at its fullest

April

Month the pack has gone by, in half of years

Peak snowpack at Madison Butte

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	Madison Butte (mm)
1981	28.0
1982	210
1983	199
1984	249
1985	234
1986	120
1987	153
1988	86.0
1989	214
1990	69.0
1991	76.0
1992	54.0
1993	279
1994	85.0
1995	96.0
1996	30.0
1997	93.0
1998	184
1999	142
2000	104
2001	81.0
2002	143
2003	27.0
2004	72.0
2005	14.0
2006	158
2007	78.0
2008	250
2009	149
2010	102
2011	157
2012	101
2013	174
2014	82.0
2015	35.0
2016	127
2017	171
2018	69.0
2019	268
2020	140
2021	165
2022	117
2023	199
2024	63.0
2025	177
2026	4.00

Read against the river

Madison Butte and JOHN DAY RIVER AT SERVICE CREEK, OR both sit in this drainage area, and their records overlap by 44 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 Lower John Day and what each holds
Gauge	Measures	Values	Record
JOHN DAY RIVER AT MCDONALD FERRY, OR	burned area within 50 km, catchment area, annual maximum river flow, mean river flow, mean river flow, water year	392	1905–2026
JOHN DAY RIVER AT SERVICE CREEK, OR	burned area within 50 km, catchment area, annual maximum river flow, mean river flow, mean river flow, water year	326	1926–2026

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 — 17070204. 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
JOHN DAY RIVER AT MCDONALD FERRY, OR	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
JOHN DAY RIVER AT SERVICE CREEK, OR	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	2	no
Years spanned	122	yes, 20 or more
Values held	1,267	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-14048000.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 John Day gauge records, accessed 2026-10-05, hydrionis.com/waters/united-states-lower-john-day/

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 John Day 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 confidence2025-01-05

Source: USGS — National Water Information System, USGS site 14048000, 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.