USGS WaterAlert Real-Time Hydrologic Notification system
Monitor your watershed areas and get hydro alerts from the gauges up-stream from your home, family and structures. Use the information to keep safe during river flood
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By Murray Wennerlund published 5-17-2021 updated 2-25-2023

Search by street address, place, state, territory and watershed region. It's something we hope grows to the point we can monitor all watershed areas and alert those that might be in danger.

Verify that you are viewing the water gauge you need to collect information from.

Click on the "Subscribe to WaterAlert" button.

Reading top to bottom and left to right select "My mobile phone" or "My email address" to receive your alerts.

Enter your full telephone number with area code and / or your favorite email address. (I never was sent spam.)

Select hourly for your first alert setup and note the time you set up your alert.

Next you need to set what you want to be alerted about. I go for the Gauge (gage) height and enter 2 feet lower than my base flood elevation or 12 inches above river bank elevation or my ground elevation at 1 inch. Our river when at 46 feet will place 5 feet of water on our property above ground level. You should know where you need to be at each half hour check of the river. We had 45 minutes from first inch to 19 inches which isn't much time if you haven't loaded up beforehand.

When you select hourly alerts I would like for you to write the time down and set a reminder for 30 minutes to create another alert. The system will send you one alert every hour for each alert you process.

Streamflow Parameter(s) (gage height, ft)

Alert Threshold Condition: Greater than (>)

Make the number as I said with your ground elevation and BFE.

Or look up the old flood stages and make alerts just under each stage starting from the lowest stage.

Currently my gauge is at 26.28 feet and I know flooding starts at 29 feet so I will make my first alert 29 feet. Then my second alert will be a 39 feet which is when I need to pack and move to higher ground.