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.

Gauges

307

Values held

1903–2026

Record spans

Gauges within the Lower Smoky Hill 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 SMOKY HILL R NR MENTOR, KS

The highest instantaneous discharge the publisher recorded in each year — a flood peak as measured, not a daily average of one. 1903–2025.

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	SMOKY HILL R NR MENTOR, KS (m³/s)
1903	906
1924	85.8
1925	59.5
1926	107
1927	722
1928	368
1929	368
1930	119
1932	78.2
1938	680
1948	99.4
1949	294
1950	317
1951	566
1952	227
1953	71.4
1954	64.6
1955	195
1956	113
1957	108
1958	113
1959	65.1
1960	87.2
1961	121
1962	91.7
1963	76.7
1964	47.3
1965	232
1966	48.1
1967	183
1969	188
1970	104
1971	167
1972	190
1973	292
1975	151
1976	83.3
1977	166
1978	51.0
1979	116
1981	144
1982	202
1983	37.9
1984	119
1985	118
1987	214
1988	34.8
1989	18.3
1990	61.4
1991	29.4
1992	116
1993	371
1995	266
1996	205
1998	93.2
2000	222
2001	102
2002	37.1
2003	64.3
2004	97.4
2005	58.6
2006	4.79
2007	133
2008	56.1
2009	152
2010	62.0
2011	18.3
2013	158
2014	86.6
2015	104
2016	112
2017	52.4
2018	44.7
2019	191
2020	60.6
2021	84.1
2022	52.7
2023	10.9
2024	39.6
2025	126

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	1903–2025
Completeness	65.0% of the periods in that span are held. Gaps are drawn as breaks and never interpolated.
Known gaps	12 separate periods inside 1903–2025 hold no value. The longest runs from 1904 to 1923 — 20 years with no reading. They are drawn as breaks in the line and are never interpolated across.
Continuity	The record begins in 1903 and is not continuous from it: 123 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 SMOKY HILL R NR MENTOR, KS, as a depth

The year's flow spread over the land draining to this gauge, in millimetres — the same unit rainfall is measured in. 1925–2025.

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	SMOKY HILL R NR MENTOR, KS (mm)
1925	6.00
1926	4.00
1927	29.0
1928	22.0
1929	19.0
1948	8.00
1949	21.0
1950	30.0
1951	71.0
1952	13.0
1953	4.00
1954	3.00
1955	4.00
1956	2.00
1957	33.0
1958	27.0
1959	15.0
1960	27.0
1961	26.0
1962	20.0
1963	5.00
1964	4.00
1965	17.0
1966	8.00
1967	21.0
1968	7.00
1969	22.0
1970	9.00
1971	16.0
1972	9.00
1973	65.0
1974	27.0
1975	13.0
1976	7.00
1977	10.0
1978	6.00
1979	16.0
1980	10.0
1981	10.0
1982	11.0
1983	4.00
1984	7.00
1985	13.0
1986	6.00
1987	31.0
1988	4.00
1989	2.00
1990	6.00
1991	3.00
1992	10.0
1993	78.0
1994	8.00
1995	26.0
1996	19.0
1997	10.0
1998	26.0
1999	22.0
2000	12.0
2001	19.0
2002	4.00
2003	5.00
2004	4.00
2005	3.00
2006	1.00
2007	24.0
2008	21.0
2009	8.00
2010	7.00
2011	3.00
2012	1.00
2013	6.00
2014	6.00
2015	5.00
2016	10.0
2017	12.0
2018	17.0
2019	49.0
2020	15.0
2021	12.0
2022	6.00
2023	2.00
2024	2.00
2025	8.00

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	1925–2025
Completeness	82.2% of the periods in that span are held. Gaps are drawn as breaks and never interpolated.
Known gaps	One period inside 1925–2025 holds no value: 1930 to 1947, 18 years with no reading. It is drawn as a break in the line and is never interpolated across.
Continuity	The record begins in 1925 and is not continuous from it: 101 years separate the first value from the last, and 82% 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

Every gauge Hydrionis holds within this area

Gauges within the Lower Smoky Hill and what each holds
Gauge	Measures	Values	Record
SMOKY HILL R NR MENTOR, KS	catchment area, annual maximum river flow, mean river flow, mean river flow, water year	257	1903–2026
SMOKY HILL R AT LINDSBORG, KS	catchment area, annual maximum river flow	50	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 — 10260008. 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
SMOKY HILL R NR MENTOR, KS	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
SMOKY HILL R AT LINDSBORG, KS	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 2 of them, which makes it a profile, not indexed.

Information-gain signals held for this water body
Signal	Held	Counts
Gauges holding a real record	2	no
Years spanned	124	yes, 20 or more
Values held	307	no
Distinct measurements	4	yes, 2 or more
Publishers measuring it	1	no
Official identifiers	1	recorded, not counted

Use this data

Machine-readable JSON /api/v1/observations/by-subject/gauge-usgs-06866500.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 Smoky Hill gauge records, accessed 2026-10-05, hydrionis.com/waters/united-states-lower-smoky-hill/

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 Smoky Hill 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 confidence2025-07-23

Source: USGS — National Water Information System, USGS site 06866500, 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.