The monitoring network within this area

Hydrionis holds 313 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

313

Values held

1924–2026

Record spans

Gauges within the St. Joseph 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 ST. JOSEPH RIVER AT MOTTVILLE, MI

The highest instantaneous discharge the publisher recorded in each year — a flood peak as measured, not a daily average of one. 1924–2025.

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	ST. JOSEPH RIVER AT MOTTVILLE, MI (m³/s)
1924	140
1925	118
1926	234
1927	143
1929	179
1930	170
1931	68.5
1932	120
1934	125
1935	112
1936	129
1938	147
1939	147
1940	91.2
1941	83.8
1942	155
1943	212
1944	146
1945	135
1946	98.5
1947	240
1948	228
1950	303
1951	121
1952	155
1953	71.9
1954	117
1955	96.6
1956	150
1957	93.4
1958	86.4
1959	131
1960	130
1961	161
1962	145
1963	116
1965	109
1966	119
1967	125
1968	168
1969	184
1970	114
1971	130
1972	115
1973	149
1974	188
1975	141
1976	207
1977	101
1978	152
1979	150
1980	160
1981	139
1982	286
1983	154
1984	120
1985	274
1986	133
1988	119
1989	323
1990	167
1991	170
1993	186
1995	113
1996	119
1997	154
1998	157
1999	135
2000	121
2001	179
2002	145
2003	92.0
2004	131
2005	167
2006	106
2007	131
2008	230
2009	229
2010	114
2011	150
2013	185
2014	166
2015	137
2016	121
2017	156
2018	309
2019	154
2020	230
2021	125
2023	146
2024	159
2025	136

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	1924–2025
Completeness	90.2% of the periods in that span are held. Gaps are drawn as breaks and never interpolated.
Known gaps	10 separate periods inside 1924–2025 hold no value. They are drawn as breaks in the line and are never interpolated across.
Continuity	The record begins in 1924 and is not continuous from it: 102 years separate the first value from the last, and 90% 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 ST. JOSEPH RIVER AT MOTTVILLE, MI, as a depth

The year's flow spread over the land draining to this gauge, in millimetres — the same unit rainfall is measured in. 1924–2025.

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	ST. JOSEPH RIVER AT MOTTVILLE, MI (mm)
1924	246
1925	206
1926	323
1927	285
1928	298
1929	306
1930	232
1931	143
1932	252
1933	290
1934	174
1935	195
1936	202
1937	323
1938	305
1939	303
1940	239
1941	229
1942	348
1943	457
1944	282
1945	250
1946	191
1947	396
1948	312
1949	302
1950	537
1951	391
1952	395
1953	181
1954	294
1955	261
1956	255
1957	201
1958	206
1959	286
1960	340
1961	246
1962	222
1963	138
1964	111
1965	246
1966	285
1967	316
1968	348
1969	382
1970	313
1971	239
1972	281
1973	397
1974	398
1975	359
1976	354
1977	239
1978	336
1979	334
1980	390
1981	421
1982	442
1983	359
1984	312
1985	417
1986	405
1987	255
1988	299
1989	367
1990	415
1991	376
1992	374
1993	462
1994	291
1995	280
1996	291
1997	378
1998	343
1999	262
2000	281
2001	418
2002	312
2003	237
2004	329
2005	290
2006	326
2007	371
2008	501
2009	468
2010	315
2011	377
2012	284
2013	314
2014	343
2015	287
2016	312
2017	402
2018	491
2019	469
2020	423
2021	331
2022	354
2023	310
2024	361
2025	249

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	1924–2025
Completeness	100.0% of the periods in that span are held.
Continuity	Continuous: every year from 1924 to 2025 is held.
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 St. Joseph and what each holds
Gauge	Measures	Values	Record
ST. JOSEPH RIVER AT MOTTVILLE, MI	catchment area, annual maximum river flow, mean river flow, mean river flow, water year	304	1924–2026
ST. JOSEPH RIVER AT BERRIEN SPRINGS, MI	catchment area, annual maximum river flow	9	1951–2026

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 — 04050001. 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
ST. JOSEPH RIVER AT MOTTVILLE, MI	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
ST. JOSEPH RIVER AT BERRIEN SPRINGS, MI	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	103	yes, 20 or more
Values held	313	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-04099000.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), St. Joseph gauge records, accessed 2026-10-05, hydrionis.com/waters/united-states-st-joseph/

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 St. Joseph 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 confidence2025-04-06

Source: USGS — National Water Information System, USGS site 04099000, 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.