U.S. River Conditions, October to December 2022

Video Description – October to December 2022 

This is an animation showing the changing conditions relative to the historic record of USGS streamgages from October 1, 2022 to December 31, 2022. The river conditions shown range from the driest condition seen at a gage (red open circles) to the wettest (blue closed circles). A purple outer ring around a gage indicates it is flooding.   

Drought conditions persisted in across the Western U.S. and the Great Plains from October to December. Flooding occurred in the Northwestern U.S. as an atmospheric river brought excess rain in November. Simultaneously, Hurricane Nicole caused flooding in the St. Johns River basin, Florida leading to high waters to Appalachia in late November. Towards the end of December, an Arctic front caused wet conditions across the Eastern U.S. Concurrently, the Pacific Coast experienced significant flooding as a tropical storm passed.  

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.