Mississippi River Shows Something Impossible

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[Terrierman]

If you think the Mississippi is low, you ought to see the Finley.  I've seen drinking fountains flowing more water.

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49 minutes ago, Terrierman said:

If you think the Mississippi is low, you ought to see the Finley.  I've seen drinking fountains flowing more water.

Everything is really low.  The Gasconade normal flow at Hazelgreen this time of year is 1400 cfs.  Today it’s 92 cfs.   

[Al Agnew]

4 hours ago, snagged in outlet 3 said:

Everything is really low.  The Gasconade normal flow at Hazelgreen this time of year is 1400 cfs.  Today it’s 92 cfs.   

It's no doubt low, but not sure where you got that figure.  The median flow for the day is 472 cfs today.  Median is the best approximation of normal.

The Mississippi at St. Louis isn't unusually low.  It's flowing at 102,000 cfs, median is 93,550 cfs.  The lowest it's ever been measured on this date is 25,700!

[Quillback]

Benton CO AR, where I live, is now in a moderate drought condition.   No rain in the 10 day forecast.  

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13 hours ago, Al Agnew said:

It's no doubt low, but not sure where you got that figure.  The median flow for the day is 472 cfs today.  Median is the best approximation of normal.

The Mississippi at St. Louis isn't unusually low.  It's flowing at 102,000 cfs, median is 93,550 cfs.  The lowest it's ever been measured on this date is 25,700!

My River App shows normal flow at 1400 CFS.  I thought they pulled from USGS but apparently not.  Sorry for the misinformation.

[ColdWaterFshr]

Where did you get that weird video, Snagged?  Seems suspect.  AI QAnon level weird.  Doomsday,. Maybe all the water is going to that Hilary pizza basement in Manhattan.  It is a concern. 

 But thanks for that informative clip.  🤣🤣🤣

[Al Agnew]

13 hours ago, snagged in outlet 3 said:

My River App shows normal flow at 1400 CFS.  I thought they pulled from USGS but apparently not.  Sorry for the misinformation.

No, they do pull from the USGS, as do all the apps.  But they are citing the MEAN flow, not the median, for some stupid reason that shows they don't understand things very well.  It's a huge flaw in River App.  Maybe I can explain...

Both mean and median take the flows measured on the given date for every year of record for that gauge.  The mean is obtained by adding up all those flows and then dividing them by the number of years...it's a straight average of all flows.  The median, on the other hand, is the figure obtained by looking at flows for all years and seeing what the figure is where half the flows were lower and half higher.  The problem with the mean flow is that it is always skewed upwards by any big flood that happened to happen on that date.  Say the river normally flows 100 cfs on that date.  Most of the years it will be around 100 cfs, probably.  In years of low water it might be 50 cfs.  But a single big flood might be 10,000 cfs.  So say you have, to simplify, ten years of record, and they look like this:  50, 70, 90, 90, 100, 110, 120, 150, 500, and 10,000.  Add 'em up..11,280. divide by 10...1128 cfs.  That's the mean.  But obviously the river doesn't normally flow 1100 cfs.  But five of the flows are 110 cfs and above, five are 100 and below.  The median is therefore between 100 and 110 cfs, so 105 cfs would be the median, and THAT'S a good approximation of what the river would normally be flowing.  In fact, just recently the USGS has added to the description of the box you click on each individual page to show the median on the graph; it now says, "Median day of year statistics--a indication of normal levels"  (the grammatical error of "a" instead of "an" is curious, kinda like their insistence of using the spelling "gage" instead of "gauge", but oh well).

This is one of the reasons I don't use the apps, but always use the actual gauges.  They have more useful info, they are free, and they are not difficult to use once you figure them out.  Though I'm still ticked at them for getting rid of the statewide streamflow tables, which was a single page source for most of the information I need, without having to go to the individual gauge pages.  They showed both present flow and the median flow for every gauge in the state, and most of the time that's all I need to know; it gives me how close the river is to normal.  Now, if you click on the individual gauge on their map on the opening page for Missouri (assuming you know the rivers on the map well enough to know which gauge you want), it does show the present flow without going to the individual page, but not the median.  I actually complained about it to them, with no response.  The present flow and the median are BOTH essential to using the gauges as a floater or angler. 

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12 hours ago, ColdWaterFshr said:

Where did you get that weird video, Snagged?  Seems suspect.  AI QAnon level weird.  Doomsday,. Maybe all the water is going to that Hilary pizza basement in Manhattan.  It is a concern. 

 But thanks for that informative clip.  🤣🤣🤣

Your wife sent me the link along with several nudes.....😆.   

[tjm]

18 hours ago, Al Agnew said:

using the spelling "gage" instead of "gauge",

I've long thought it funny that Americans insist on dropping the French  "u" from words like colour and honour yet insist on keeping it in gouge and gauge. We certainly have a peculiar language.