The monitoring network within this area

Hydrionis holds 585 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

585

Values held

1870–2026

Record spans

Gauges within the Middle James-Buffalo 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 JAMES RIVER AT HOLCOMB ROCK, VA

The highest instantaneous discharge the publisher recorded in each year — a flood peak as measured, not a daily average of one. 1900–2024.

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	JAMES RIVER AT HOLCOMB ROCK, VA (m³/s)
1900	821
1901	1,472
1902	2,209
1903	1,501
1904	878
1905	1,642
1906	793
1908	1,982
1909	1,642
1910	1,416
1911	906
1912	1,557
1913	3,341
1914	708
1915	2,209
1917	1,501
1926	1,274
1929	1,056
1931	413
1932	1,096
1934	1,070
1935	2,444
1936	3,256
1937	1,504
1939	1,178
1940	1,892
1941	708
1942	1,945
1944	943
1945	844
1946	1,096
1947	866
1948	1,348
1949	1,792
1950	1,979
1952	1,405
1953	1,589
1954	1,775
1955	1,866
1956	532
1957	1,713
1958	1,119
1959	821
1960	1,651
1961	736
1963	2,115
1964	898
1965	1,192
1966	1,155
1967	1,727
1968	736
1969	4,248
1970	1,682
1971	1,744
1972	3,568
1973	1,634
1975	1,733
1976	1,138
1977	1,889
1978	2,257
1979	2,076
1980	1,625
1981	844
1982	1,923
1983	1,229
1984	1,750
1985	697
1987	2,772
1988	493
1989	1,300
1990	1,008
1991	1,226
1992	2,973
1993	1,838
1994	971
1995	2,486
1996	3,285
1999	459
2000	674
2001	719
2002	589
2003	2,226
2004	2,036
2005	838
2006	1,892
2008	816
2009	617
2010	2,059
2011	1,385
2013	1,523
2014	784
2015	1,090
2016	1,291
2017	1,390
2018	1,489
2019	1,413
2020	1,339
2021	1,045
2022	776
2023	886
2024	1,005

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	1900–2024
Completeness	80.8% of the periods in that span are held. Gaps are drawn as breaks and never interpolated.
Known gaps	15 separate periods inside 1900–2024 hold no value. The longest runs from 1918 to 1925 — 8 years with no reading. They are drawn as breaks in the line and are never interpolated across.
Continuity	The record begins in 1900 and is not continuous from it: 125 years separate the first value from the last, and 81% 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 SLATE RIVER NEAR ARVONIA, VA, as a depth

The year's flow spread over the land draining to this gauge, in millimetres — the same unit rainfall is measured in. 1927–2024.

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	SLATE RIVER NEAR ARVONIA, VA (mm)
1927	277
1928	396
1929	370
1930	169
1931	191
1932	324
1933	293
1934	297
1937	577
1938	382
1939	395
1940	423
1941	213
1942	265
1943	275
1944	423
1945	353
1946	320
1947	265
1948	601
1949	468
1950	348
1951	319
1952	418
1953	272
1954	258
1955	317
1956	190
1957	252
1958	312
1959	236
1960	318
1961	475
1962	477
1963	230
1964	186
1965	187
1966	198
1967	268
1968	204
1969	251
1970	204
1971	518
1972	874
1973	525
1974	460
1975	549
1976	416
1977	217
1978	454
1979	579
1980	277
1981	152
1982	357
1983	361
1984	429
1985	352
1986	164
1987	370
1988	185
1989	454
1990	403
1991	295
1992	243
1993	449
1994	409
2006	299
2007	239
2008	189
2009	320
2010	285
2011	217
2012	195
2013	324
2014	335
2015	252
2016	323
2017	170
2018	572
2019	360
2020	572
2021	294
2022	204
2023	282
2024	398

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	1927–2024
Completeness	86.7% of the periods in that span are held. Gaps are drawn as breaks and never interpolated.
Known gaps	2 separate periods inside 1927–2024 hold no value. The longest runs from 1995 to 2005 — 11 years with no reading. They are drawn as breaks in the line and are never interpolated across.
Continuity	The record begins in 1927 and is not continuous from it: 98 years separate the first value from the last, and 87% 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 Middle James-Buffalo and what each holds
Gauge	Measures	Values	Record
SLATE RIVER NEAR ARVONIA, VA	catchment area, annual maximum river flow, mean river flow, mean river flow, water year	262	1926–2026
JAMES RIVER AT HOLCOMB ROCK, VA	catchment area, annual maximum river flow	115	1900–2026
JAMES RIVER AT BENT CREEK, VA	catchment area, annual maximum river flow	106	1870–2026
JAMES RIVER AT SCOTTSVILLE, VA	catchment area, annual maximum river flow	102	1924–2026

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 — 02080203. 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
SLATE RIVER NEAR ARVONIA, VA	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
JAMES RIVER AT HOLCOMB ROCK, VA	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
JAMES RIVER AT BENT CREEK, VA	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
JAMES RIVER AT SCOTTSVILLE, VA	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 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	4	yes, 3 or more
Years spanned	157	yes, 20 or more
Values held	585	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-02030500.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), Middle James-Buffalo gauge records, accessed 2026-10-05, hydrionis.com/waters/united-states-middle-james-buffalo/

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 Middle James-Buffalo 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 confidence2024-10-01

Source: USGS — National Water Information System, USGS site 02030500, 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.