Watauga River below Wilbur Dam 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 03484000 sits on the Watauga River and reads everything draining 471 square miles of the Watauga basin. Its datum sits 1,550 feet above sea level NGVD29. Daily flow is on record here from 1903 to 1982, 40 years in all.

Where this gauge sits in the drainage

Two gauged sites sit upstream of here. The closest is Watauga River below Watauga Dam, Tenn, reading 468 square miles. Downstream the next reading comes from Watauga River at Elizabethton, TN at 692 square miles, so what passes this gauge is about 68% of the water measured there. It then enters Boone Lake, below which releases set the flow.

Normal flows here

The Watauga River runs a median of 562 cfs at this gauge across 40 years of record. August is the fullest month at a median 771 cfs, and March the leanest at 252 cfs. The highest daily mean on record is 10,100 cfs in 1905, and the lowest is 2.4 cfs in 1949.

Medians from the USGS daily-statistics record, 1903 to 1982. 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 Wilbur 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.

• Wilbur Dam 1 mile
• Watauga Dam 1 mile
• South Holston Dam 12 miles
• Boone Dam 18 miles