USGS Surface-Water Data for Washington

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Explore the NEW USGS National Water Dashboard interactive map to access real-time water data from over 13,500 stations nationwide.

USGS Surface-Water Data for Washington

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Washington Water Science Center | Subscribe to Water Alerts | Threatened and Endangered Stations in Washington

Current Conditions (320 sites)
Current conditions at selected sites based on the most recent data from on-site automated recording equipment. Measurements are commonly recorded at a fixed interval of 15- to 60-minutes and transmitted to the USGS every hour. Values may include "Approved" (quality-assured data that may be published) and/or more recent "Provisional" data (of unverified accuracy and subject to revision). Most current data are provisional.
Historical Observations (600 sites)
The same data accessed by the Current Conditions link above but including both active and discontinued sites with data for any part of the period October 1, 2007, through the present. Values may include "Approved" (quality-assured data that may be published) and/or more recent "Provisional" data (of unverified accuracy and subject to revision).
Daily Data (1,177 sites)
Summary of all data for each day for the period of record and may represent the daily mean, median, maximum, minimum, and/or other derived value. Values may include "Approved" (quality-assured data that may be published) and/or more recent "Provisional" data (of unverified accuracy and subject to revision).
Statistics (1,158 sites) Annual Monthly Daily
Statistics are computed from approved daily mean data at each site. These links provide summaries of approved historical daily values for daily, monthly, and annual (water year or calendar year) time periods.
Peak-Flow Data (1,022 sites)
Annual maximum instantaneous peak streamflow and gage height
Field Measurements (2,465 sites)
Manual measurements of streamflow and gage height. These measurements are used to supplement and (or) verify the accuracy of the automatically recorded observations, as well as to compute streamflow based on gage height.

Introduction

The USGS in Washington State currently collects data for about 300 streamflow, reservoir, water-quality, meteorological, and groundwater sites, of which about 240 have satellite telemetry for real-time data, and another 20 have other communications equipment for near-realtime data.

The USGS has operated about 1,000 continuous data collection sites since 1895 when the first streamgage on the Spokane River at Spokane. Additional information about the USGS data collection program is available from the Washington Water Science Center home page, along with links below to an array of other sources of water resources data for Washington.