Cumberland River at Old Hickory Dam (Tw), TN Flow & Water Level

NWS river forecast

Forecast from the NOAA National Water Prediction Service. Issued a few times a day and only while a forecast is active. Not for navigation.

Last 30 days

About this gauge

USGS gauge 03426310 sits on the Cumberland River and reads everything draining 11,673 square miles of the Lower Cumberland-Sycamore basin. Its datum sits 380 feet above sea level NGVD29. Daily flow is on record here from 1957 to 2007, 51 years in all.

Where this gauge sits in the drainage

Old Hickory Lake sits immediately upstream, so dam releases rather than rainfall set the flow here. No gauged site sits above this one on the mainstem, so this is the first published reading on the river. Downstream the next reading comes from Cumberland River at Edenwold, TN at 11,735 square miles, so what passes this gauge is about 99% of the water measured there. Water passing here goes on to Cumberland River at Stones River near Hermitage,tn, Cumberland River at Omohundro Wtr Plt at Nashville, TN and Cumberland River at Nashville, TN.

Normal flows here

The Cumberland River runs a median of 12,650 cfs at this gauge across 51 years of record. January is the fullest month at a median 26,400 cfs, and October the leanest at 7,320 cfs. The highest daily mean on record is 146,000 cfs in 1975, and the lowest is 200 cfs in 1958.

Medians from the USGS daily-statistics record, 1957 to 2007. A month at 100% is running at its own long-term median. USGS stopped publishing a daily flow record at this gauge, so these are historical norms, not a baseline for current readings.

TVA dams near this gauge

TVA's Old Hickory Dam sits 1 mile from this gauge and its releases set what this gauge reads. Planned generation, lake level and tailwater elevation for it load below when TVA has published them.

• Old Hickory Dam 1 mile
• J Percy Priest Dam 10 miles