The monitoring network within this area

Hydrionis holds 389 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

389

Values held

1908–2026

Record spans

Gauges within the Upper Cumberland 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 CUMBERLAND RIVER AT CUMBERLAND FALLS, KY

The highest instantaneous discharge the publisher recorded in each year — a flood peak as measured, not a daily average of one. 1915–2023.

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	CUMBERLAND RIVER AT CUMBERLAND FALLS, KY (m³/s)
1915	1,280
1917	1,331
1918	1,688
1919	1,053
1920	1,232
1921	799
1922	1,093
1923	875
1924	994
1925	875
1926	725
1928	895
1929	1,589
1931	759
1932	668
1934	968
1935	1,014
1936	878
1937	1,028
1938	592
1939	1,481
1940	606
1941	773
1942	614
1944	934
1945	637
1946	1,535
1947	779
1948	1,269
1949	818
1950	1,419
1951	1,317
1952	1,048
1953	586
1954	705
1955	1,178
1956	994
1957	1,625
1959	733
1961	708
1962	1,226
1963	1,099
1964	515
1965	985
1966	606
1967	1,065
1968	776
1969	530
1971	773
1972	864
1973	1,186
1975	1,540
1976	776
1977	1,373
1978	816
1979	900
1980	940
1981	504
1982	929
1983	586
1984	1,659
1985	496
1986	728
1988	561
1989	974
1990	657
1991	1,257
1993	855
1994	1,257
2003	1,220
2004	994
2010	991
2011	1,116
2013	714
2015	1,096
2016	779
2017	1,110
2018	1,229
2019	1,198
2020	1,526
2021	1,359
2022	954
2023	912

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	1915–2023
Completeness	76.1% of the periods in that span are held. Gaps are drawn as breaks and never interpolated.
Known gaps	15 separate periods inside 1915–2023 hold no value. The longest runs from 1995 to 2002 — 8 years with no reading. They are drawn as breaks in the line and are never interpolated across.
Continuity	The record begins in 1915 and is not continuous from it: 109 years separate the first value from the last, and 76% 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 CUMBERLAND RIVER AT CUMBERLAND FALLS, KY, as a depth

The year's flow spread over the land draining to this gauge, in millimetres — the same unit rainfall is measured in. 1908–2023.

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	CUMBERLAND RIVER AT CUMBERLAND FALLS, KY (mm)
1908	543
1909	722
1910	570
1916	468
1917	677
1918	560
1919	572
1920	662
1921	437
1922	646
1923	572
1924	561
1925	432
1926	748
1927	634
1928	705
1929	792
1930	246
1933	485
1934	409
1935	659
1936	456
1937	608
1938	537
1939	497
1940	339
1941	259
1942	479
1943	426
1944	507
1945	529
1946	551
1947	514
1948	490
1949	552
1950	734
1951	755
1952	518
1953	443
1954	345
1955	493
1956	667
1957	703
1958	512
1959	495
1960	521
1961	583
1962	630
1963	456
1964	568
1965	437
1966	407
1967	755
1968	420
1969	341
1970	566
1971	629
1972	869
1973	829
1974	795
1975	738
1976	480
1977	643
1978	544
1979	758
1980	398
1981	343
1982	628
1983	492
1984	606
1985	384
1986	402
1987	386
1988	289
1989	857
1990	638
1991	738
1992	432
1993	517
2003	774
2004	761
2011	988
2012	510
2013	777
2014	565
2015	671
2016	471
2017	547
2018	798
2021	581
2022	571
2023	376

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	1908–2023
Completeness	79.3% of the periods in that span are held. Gaps are drawn as breaks and never interpolated.
Known gaps	5 separate periods inside 1908–2023 hold no value. The longest runs from 1994 to 2002 — 9 years with no reading. They are drawn as breaks in the line and are never interpolated across.
Continuity	The record begins in 1908 and is not continuous from it: 116 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 Upper Cumberland and what each holds
Gauge	Measures	Values	Record
CUMBERLAND RIVER AT CUMBERLAND FALLS, KY	burned area within 50 km, catchment area, annual maximum river flow, mean river flow	223	1908–2026
CUMBERLAND RIVER AT BARBOURVILLE, KY	burned area within 50 km, catchment area, annual maximum river flow, mean river flow	166	1923–2026

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 — 05130101. 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
CUMBERLAND RIVER AT CUMBERLAND FALLS, KY	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
CUMBERLAND RIVER AT BARBOURVILLE, KY	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	119	yes, 20 or more
Values held	389	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-03404500.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), Upper Cumberland gauge records, accessed 2026-09-02, hydrionis.com/waters/united-states-upper-cumberland/

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 Upper Cumberland 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 confidence2023-02-17

Source: USGS — National Water Information System, USGS site 03404500, 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.