The monitoring network within this area

Hydrionis holds 362 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.

Gauges

362

Values held

1905–2026

Record spans

Gauges within the Lower Little Tennessee 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 TELLICO RIVER AT TELLICO PLAINS, TN

The highest instantaneous discharge the publisher recorded in each year — a flood peak as measured, not a daily average of one. 1926–2024.

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	TELLICO RIVER AT TELLICO PLAINS, TN (m³/s)
1926	73.9
1927	177
1928	168
1929	271
1931	107
1932	170
1934	157
1935	148
1936	374
1937	180
1938	309
1939	128
1940	71.9
1941	32.0
1942	99.7
1944	135
1945	151
1946	216
1947	320
1948	182
1949	268
1951	428
1952	186
1953	294
1954	292
1955	169
1956	184
1957	496
1959	232
1961	351
1963	326
1964	348
1965	391
1966	226
1967	175
1969	164
1971	150
1972	167
1973	564
1975	459
1976	204
1977	351
1978	133
1979	433
1980	273
1981	170
1982	300
2002	106
2003	541
2004	161
2006	118
2007	41.6
2008	68.8
2009	283
2011	157
2013	314
2014	182
2015	163
2017	68.8
2018	286
2019	143
2020	561
2021	360
2022	263
2023	697
2024	180

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	1926–2024
Completeness	66.7% of the periods in that span are held. Gaps are drawn as breaks and never interpolated.
Known gaps	15 separate periods inside 1926–2024 hold no value. The longest runs from 1983 to 2001 — 19 years with no reading. They are drawn as breaks in the line and are never interpolated across.
Continuity	The record begins in 1926 and is not continuous from it: 99 years separate the first value from the last, and 67% of the years between them are held. The span is not the record.
Last read from the publisher	2026-08-31
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 TELLICO RIVER AT TELLICO PLAINS, 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. 1926–2025.

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	TELLICO RIVER AT TELLICO PLAINS, TN (mm)
1926	876
1927	950
1928	1,017
1929	1,663
1930	649
1931	729
1932	1,209
1933	739
1934	789
1935	758
1936	914
1937	782
1938	933
1939	621
1940	463
1941	456
1942	750
1943	690
1944	742
1945	673
1946	890
1947	761
1948	790
1949	1,126
1950	892
1951	791
1952	616
1953	770
1954	700
1955	700
1956	743
1957	1,142
1958	714
1959	801
1960	667
1961	1,037
1962	945
1963	855
1964	967
1965	765
1966	792
1967	920
1968	611
1969	632
1970	642
1971	940
1972	1,180
1973	1,140
1974	908
1975	1,003
1976	912
1977	809
1978	633
1979	1,116
1980	724
1981	580
2001	606
2002	762
2003	1,164
2004	928
2005	639
2006	597
2007	321
2008	490
2009	899
2010	704
2011	853
2014	803
2015	1,004
2016	531
2017	621
2018	1,186
2019	1,146
2020	1,293
2021	1,131
2022	887
2023	884
2024	682
2025	785

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	1926–2025
Completeness	79.0% of the periods in that span are held. Gaps are drawn as breaks and never interpolated.
Known gaps	2 separate periods inside 1926–2025 hold no value. The longest runs from 1982 to 2000 — 19 years with no reading. They are drawn as breaks in the line and are never interpolated across.
Continuity	The record begins in 1926 and is not continuous from it: 100 years separate the first value from the last, and 79% of the years between them are held. The span is not the record.
Last read from the publisher	2026-08-24
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 Little Tennessee and what each holds
Gauge	Measures	Values	Record
TELLICO RIVER AT TELLICO PLAINS, TN	burned area within 50 km, catchment area, annual maximum river flow, mean river flow	196	1926–2026
LITTLE TENNESSEE RIVER AT MCGHEE, TENN	burned area within 50 km, catchment area, annual maximum river flow, mean river flow	166	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 — 06010204. 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
TELLICO RIVER AT TELLICO PLAINS, 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	2026-08-26
LITTLE TENNESSEE RIVER AT MCGHEE, TENN	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	2026-08-26

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.

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	362	no
Distinct measurements	4	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-03518500.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 Little Tennessee gauge records, accessed 2026-09-02, hydrionis.com/waters/united-states-lower-little-tennessee/

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 Little Tennessee 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 confidence2024-01-09

Source: USGS — National Water Information System, USGS site 03518500, 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.