U.S. River Conditions, July to September 2020

This is an animation showing the changing conditions of USGS streamgages from July 1, 2020 to September 30, 2020. The conditions shown range from the driest condition seen at a gage (red open circles) to the wettest (blue closed circles). There is also a purple ring added to indicate gages that are flooding. At the beginning of July, the Southwest US experienced severe drought. During August and September, extreme drought conditions began to grow throughout the West. New England experienced dry conditions for almost the entire time period with severe drought conditions spanning from mid-August to the end of September. Rain briefly interrupted theses dry conditions in New England due to Tropical Storm Fay in mid-July and the remnants of Hurricane Isaias in early August. In the Upper Midwest, high flows and some flooding were seen in mid-to-late July. At one gage along the James River in South Dakota, river levels finally dropped below flood stage on September 30 after 545 days. At the end of July, Hurricane Hanna brought rain to the Texas coast. This hurricane was followed up by 4 more tropical events in the Gulf Coast: Hurricane Marco and Hurricane Laura made landfall in Louisiana at the end of August, Hurricane Sally made landfall in mid-September and caused flooding in the Southeast, and finally Tropical Storm Beta made landfall in Texas near the end of September. Note that both USGS gage height and National Weather Service flood stage levels are necessary to determine flooding conditions and were available for 38% of streamgages at the time this graphic was produced. Only publicly available data from the National Water Information System Website was used and some gages are missing gage height even when they have flow.