Upper Little River at Sr1740 at Petra Mills, NC 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 0214183365 sits on the Upper Little River and reads everything draining 34 square miles of the Upper Catawba basin. Its datum sits 982 feet above sea level NAVD88. Daily flow has been on record here since 1993, 8 years of it.

Where this gauge sits in the drainage

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 Catawba River at NC Highway 16 near Millersville, NC at 1,310 square miles, so what passes this gauge is about 3% of the water measured there. Water passing here goes on to Catawba River below Lookout Shoals Dam near Sharon, NC. It then enters Lake Hickory on Catawba River near Taylorsville, NC, below which releases set the flow.

Normal flows here

The Upper Little River runs a median of 32 cfs at this gauge across 8 years of record. March is the fullest month at a median 48 cfs, and October the leanest at 20 cfs. The highest daily mean on record is 6,210 cfs in 1994, and the lowest is 6.3 cfs in 2026.

Medians from the USGS daily-statistics record, 1993 to 2026. A month at 100% is running at its own long-term median.