The monitoring network within this area

Hydrionis holds 377 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

377

Values held

1895–2026

Record spans

Gauges within the Middle 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 AT ELLSWORTH, KS

The highest instantaneous discharge the publisher recorded in each year — a flood peak as measured, not a daily average of one. 1895–2025.

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 AT ELLSWORTH, KS (m³/s)
1895	736
1896	129
1897	15.4
1898	31.1
1899	351
1900	21.2
1901	18.7
1902	351
1903	527
1904	248
1905	188
1919	142
1920	46.7
1921	68.2
1922	365
1923	223
1924	38.2
1925	72.5
1927	1,269
1928	532
1929	430
1930	385
1932	240
1933	206
1934	216
1935	362
1936	122
1937	122
1938	1,727
1939	258
1940	133
1941	518
1942	481
1943	109
1944	365
1945	371
1946	161
1948	107
1949	311
1950	377
1951	850
1952	314
1953	90.3
1954	99.4
1955	306
1956	115
1957	394
1958	289
1960	510
1961	527
1962	428
1963	116
1964	141
1965	328
1966	206
1967	498
1968	188
1969	422
1970	603
1971	345
1973	501
1975	286
1976	132
1977	213
1978	23.4
1979	354
1980	96.8
1981	197
1982	189
1983	7.19
1984	72.5
1985	328
1986	79.3
1987	476
1988	10.2
1989	106
1990	682
1991	189
1992	345
1993	858
1994	39.9
1995	311
1996	248
1998	203
1999	205
2000	143
2001	354
2002	37.7
2003	101
2004	83.8
2005	32.3
2006	13.8
2007	524
2008	276
2010	103
2011	176
2012	19.8
2013	65.4
2014	74.5
2015	13.0
2016	159
2017	255
2018	159
2020	422
2021	194
2022	126
2023	19.3
2024	292
2025	142

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	1895–2025
Completeness	83.2% of the periods in that span are held. Gaps are drawn as breaks and never interpolated.
Known gaps	10 separate periods inside 1895–2025 hold no value. The longest runs from 1906 to 1918 — 13 years with no reading. They are drawn as breaks in the line and are never interpolated across.
Continuity	The record begins in 1895 and is not continuous from it: 131 years separate the first value from the last, and 83% 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 AT ELLSWORTH, 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. 1896–2025.

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 AT ELLSWORTH, KS (mm)
1896	5.00
1897	3.00
1898	3.00
1899	7.00
1900	4.00
1901	2.00
1902	18.0
1903	21.0
1904	8.00
1919	14.0
1920	3.00
1921	4.00
1922	6.00
1923	12.0
1924	4.00
1929	12.0
1930	14.0
1931	6.00
1932	9.00
1933	11.0
1934	5.00
1935	24.0
1936	5.00
1937	6.00
1938	22.0
1939	6.00
1940	5.00
1941	21.0
1942	16.0
1943	3.00
1944	17.0
1945	8.00
1946	13.0
1947	8.00
1948	7.00
1949	17.0
1950	27.0
1951	61.0
1952	9.00
1953	3.00
1954	3.00
1955	6.00
1956	2.00
1957	33.0
1958	25.0
1959	10.0
1960	22.0
1961	24.0
1962	17.0
1963	4.00
1964	4.00
1965	13.0
1966	7.00
1967	17.0
1968	6.00
1969	15.0
1970	9.00
1971	11.0
1972	5.00
1973	38.0
1974	14.0
1975	9.00
1976	4.00
1977	6.00
1978	3.00
1979	9.00
1980	5.00
1981	7.00
1982	5.00
1983	1.00
1984	4.00
1985	5.00
1986	3.00
1987	22.0
1988	2.00
1989	4.00
1990	7.00
1991	2.00
1992	8.00
1993	48.0
1994	5.00
1995	13.0
1996	11.0
1997	6.00
1998	15.0
1999	11.0
2000	6.00
2001	16.0
2002	3.00
2003	3.00
2004	3.00
2005	1.00
2006	1.00
2007	16.0
2008	16.0
2009	4.00
2010	6.00
2011	3.00
2012	1.00
2013	2.00
2014	4.00
2015	1.00
2016	6.00
2017	8.00
2018	17.0
2019	37.0
2020	12.0
2021	10.0
2022	4.00
2023	2.00
2025	2.00

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	1896–2025
Completeness	85.4% of the periods in that span are held. Gaps are drawn as breaks and never interpolated.
Known gaps	3 separate periods inside 1896–2025 hold no value. The longest runs from 1905 to 1918 — 14 years with no reading. They are drawn as breaks in the line and are never interpolated across.
Continuity	The record begins in 1896 and is not continuous from it: 130 years separate the first value from the last, and 85% 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 Smoky Hill and what each holds
Gauge	Measures	Values	Record
SMOKY HILL R AT ELLSWORTH, KS	catchment area, annual maximum river flow, mean river flow, mean river flow, water year	341	1895–2026
SMOKY HILL R AT PFEIFER, KS	catchment area, annual maximum river flow	36	1970–2026

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 — 10260006. 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 AT ELLSWORTH, 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 PFEIFER, 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	1	no
Years spanned	132	yes, 20 or more
Values held	377	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-06864500.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 Smoky Hill gauge records, accessed 2026-10-05, hydrionis.com/waters/united-states-middle-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 Middle 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 confidence2025-09-21

Source: USGS — National Water Information System, USGS site 06864500, 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.