So How Low Are The Rivers?

[Al Agnew]

Jerry Rapp showed some statistics for Black River at K Highway in another thread, and I added to the info. But it got me curious as to how the water levels during this current drought compare to historical lows. The USGS gauges are a wealth of information.

First, though, a note on the information in the gauges. You can't go by the level in feet for historical purposes, because if the character of the bottom of the river around the gauge changes during the history of the gauge, the readings in feet will change as well. For instance, if there is a riffle just below the gauge and the gauge is on a pool, if a bunch more gravel piles up at the riffle, it will form a higher "dam", raising the level of the pool where the gauge is, even though the volume of flowing water doesn't change. Or if the riffle gets washed out deeper, the "dam" it forms is "lower", and the water level in the pool drops. You will see lots of instances where the minimum height at the gauge will be pretty similar from year to year for a decade or more, and then the river changes there and the minimum readings get suddenly higher or lower. So the only constant information for the entire record of the gauge is the measured flow in cubic feet per second. While cfs is extrapolated from the river level in feet reading, USGS personnel periodically visit the gauge and manually measure the flow in cfs to make sure it is still matching what the gauge is showing it to be (within a few cfs). If the gauge height readings have changed as I explained above, the USGS adjusts their flow in cfs to match.

I went through some of the major float streams just now, reading the flows in cfs. I picked gauges that are fairly far down on the streams, not headwaters that are usually unfloatable, and I also picked the gauges based upon how many years they've been in existence. There is little use in looking for historical data from a gauge that has only been there for a few years. Many of the gauges have been in existence for 70-90 years, and those will give you great historical data. I first went to the stream flow table, which is on the same page as the graphs. It not only shows the current flow in cfs, but shows the minimum flow ever recorded for this date, and the year it was recorded. Then I went to "daily statistics" on the drop down menu near the top of the page, and on it went to daily minimums. This brings up a big table with the lowest flows recorded for each date of the year for the whole time the gauge has been there. I looked through this table for the lowest flow ever recorded. Here's what I found:

Gasconade River at Hazelgreen--now flowing 70 cfs. Lowest flow ever recorded for July 3 was 61 cfs in 1934. Minimum flow ever recorded was 19 cfs.

Big Piney at Big Piney (Ross Bridge)--now 146 cfs. Minimum for this date was 87 cfs in 1934. Lowest ever was 60 cfs.

Gasconade at Jerome--510 cfs right now. 391 on July 3, 1934. Lowest ever was 259 cfs.

Meramec at Steelville--144 cfs right now. Minimum for July 3 was 115 in 1934. Lowest ever was 76 cfs.

Meramec at Sullivan--the Meramec had a slight rise yesterday. It had gotten down to around 210 cfs, but is now at 241 cfs, which is a still a record for this date, the previous minimum having been 243 cfs in 1931. The lowest ever recorded was 259 cfs. The fact that the Meramec here is at its lowest ever for this date while it is not at the gauge at Steelville may mean that the Huzzah is flowing at record lows, since it comes into the Meramec between the two gauges.

Bourbeuse at Union--now flowing 36 cfs. Record for this date is 28 cfs. Lowest ever recorded was 12 cfs. This gauge, far down on the Bourbeuse, shows you that the Bourbeuse is less spring fed than most Ozark streams, and gets very low during dry periods.

Big River, Richwoods--40 cfs right now, and that's WELL below the previous minimum for this date, which was 82 cfs in 1961. The lowest ever was 22 cfs.

St. Francis, Patterson--19 cfs right now, which beats the record for this date, which was 23 cfs in 1936. Lowest ever was 9.2 cfs. Again, the St. Francis is shown not to be heavily spring fed and thus gets very low in dry weather.

Current, Van Buren--793 cfs right now. 595 cfs in 1934 is the lowest for July 3, 479 the lowest ever recorded.

Jacks Fork, Eminence--136 cfs right now. 95 in 1934 is the lowest for July 3, 67 the lowest ever.

Black near Annapolis--100 cfs right now, which ties the record for this date in 1941. Lowest ever was 66 cfs.

Eleven Point near Bardley--435 cfs now, lowest for July 3 was 222 cfs in 1936, lowest ever was 162 cfs.

Elk near Tiff City--60 cfs right now, well above the record for this date at 24 cfs in 1954. Lowest ever was 6 cfs!

So, the middle Meramec, Big River, the St. Francis, and Black River are at record lows for this date. All four have their headwaters in the same region, so it looks like the area to the south and east of Salem, MO is being hit the hardest by the drought right now. The upper Gasconade and the Bourbeuse aren't too far off record lows. The Current and Jacks Fork are doing a little better, perhaps because they are so heavily spring fed and the big springs are still flowing well from an abundance of rain last year, and the Eleven Point is doing the best of any of the streams I listed. The scary thing, though, is that all of these streams aren't that far off the lowest they've ever been, and those lows have all been in late August through October. Unless the present drought breaks later on in the summer, we will probably see record low flows on many streams by late summer.

[drew03cmc]

I have noticed current stream conditions around me are in the single digit percentiles. It is quite sad, but there is NO water in the ground, and no rain forecast for several more days, and that is a 30% chance.

[Quillback]

Outdoor writer in the Sunday paper was saying Cooked Creek is dry in places.

[jdmidwest]

Crooked Creek is a losing stream in some portions, esp around Yellville. Water goes underground and re-surfaces.

Castor River is just a creek now, Whitewater is the same way. Smaller creeks are down to almost wet water branch status. We have been getting some rain in the area all week, Strong popup thundershowers. That should help recharge the system with the runoff.

I have seen the bottom of many ponds in the area when I am out on my travels. Those should be recharged also.

[ozark trout fisher]

We've gotten several rather severe thunderstorms here, but they have all had very little to no rain. On Monday it appeared that we were going to get significant rain, but after a few minutes it just fell apart.

The stream levels are a bit alarming, granted...but it's not what I'm worried about at this point. My concern is the near-record low water mixed with the record high temperatures. On smallie streams like the Bourbeuse and St. Francis that are not heavily spring-fed, this could end up being trouble if this type of weather continues. Not to mention some of the trout creeks...I don't even want to think about where they will be at after this is over. I know I'm staying off those types of streams now and only fishing the heavily spring-fed waters for smallmouth as well as lakes for largemouth. But even there the fish don't seem to have much fight in them, though the fishing has been ridiculously easy in some places. It all gives me a bad feeling strong enough for me to consider putting up my fishing rod until this crap ends. Because goodness knows how much catching and releasing fish stresses them out right now.

[kirbydog]

One thing that low water does-it usually coincides with low oxygen levels and higher water temps.

This can have an adverse affect on survival rates of fish caught and returned to the water.

[Wayne SW/MO]

I cross Bull creek and Bear fairly often and I've never seen them this low. At one gravel bar, that I can see well from the road, the creek is now a shallow 3' wide. Bear has a couple of areas where I can't see water from the road.

[Mitch f]

Well, I went out on the Meramec about 10 days ago and really had a tough go of it with my jet boat. in 3 or 4 spots you only had about a 6-7 ft wide area to run thru. I've never seen it this low.

[Al Agnew]

Yeah, I think this is really going to be bad for the smaller trout streams. In my opinion, it wouldn't be a bad idea for MDC to shut off the fishing completely in them, but even that won't help if the water is too low and warm for the trout to survive except very close to the springs.

I think I'll start carrying a water thermometer on my trips just to see how warm the water really is. I usually don't carry one in the summer, since it isn't very important to what kind of fishing you'll have like it is from mid-autumn to mid-spring. But I'd like to know how warm the water is. I noted that on the wading size streams I fished last week the water still felt reasonably cool, like in the mid to upper 70s at a guess, but on Big River yesterday it felt like it was in the low 80s, which is about the upper limit of "comfort" for bass.

[Midwest troutbum]

Praying for some soaking cold rains to quench the grounds thirst.