Arkansas Canoe Club Forums

always relied on the Buffalo gauges and recommended levels, now what?

Grant

Did something happen to the Buffalo gauges?

I have a link to the gauges at home. Not here at work. Are the gauges the same? Just have to link to them differently. I could be wrong here... but they are close. I will post them later if no others beat me to it.

Here are some:
Boxley
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/ar/nwis/uv/?s ... 0065,00060" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ponca
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/ar/nwis/uv/?s ... 0065,00060" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Pruitt
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/ar/nwis/uv/?s ... 0065,00060" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

St.Joe
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/ar/nwis/uv/?s ... 0065,00060" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Can't find the one for HW 14

Hope this helps.

Eric

The National Park Service decided it could no longer afford to maintain the Buffalo River "real time" flood warning gage system, that included four level gages and about 19 rain gages. Lazer and I met with them last year in a "last ditch" effort to save portions of the system, by identifying which gages could be retired with minimal impact on floaters, and which were more important to us (like the rain gages along the upper river), but when the decision was made by the higher ups, "budget reductions" were not enough, they killed the system entirely.

One reason they were willing to "kill" the system is because it the USGS already maintains several river gages along the river, so the main difference for level gages is in the update rate - instead of "real time" updates, we get only hourly, or once-every-four-hour updates, depending on which gage. For rain data, we now have to depend on doppler rainfall estimates, which are not nearly as good as the "real time" data, but are much better than nothing.

Some of the recommended levels for USGS gages are the same as for the old NPS gages, but I'm not sure that is 100% true for all gages. The Park Service will need to publish a revised list of recommended floating levels based on the USGS gage readings. Until that is done, I'd say call the Park Service to get their recommendations.

Cowper wrote:The National Park Service decided it could no longer afford to maintain the Buffalo River "real time" flood warning gage system, that included four level gages and about 19 rain gages. Lazer and I met with them last year in a "last ditch" effort to save portions of the system, by identifying which gages could be retired with minimal impact on floaters, and which were more important to us (like the rain gages along the upper river), but when the decision was made by the higher ups, "budget reductions" were not enough, they killed the system entirely.

One reason they were willing to "kill" the system is because it the USGS already maintains several river gages along the river, so the main difference for level gages is in the update rate - instead of "real time" updates, we get only hourly, or once-every-four-hour updates, depending on which gage. For rain data, we now have to depend on doppler rainfall estimates, which are not nearly as good as the "real time" data, but are much better than nothing.

Some of the recommended levels for USGS gages are the same as for the old NPS gages, but I'm not sure that is 100% true for all gages. The Park Service will need to publish a revised list of recommended floating levels based on the USGS gage readings. Until that is done, I'd say call the Park Service to get their recommendations.

thanks, i was looking for the "recommended level" info to compare to the gauges.

Below is a link with the old recommended levels. It's my recollection that the NPS and USGS gauges were very close in readings.

http://www.harrisonarkansas.org/riverlevels.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;