Streamflow
Below normalWillamette River at Portland streamflow
Daily mean discharge, Willamette-Columbia basin, Oregon
Data through Oct 15, 2026 · source last checked Oct 17, 2026 · page revised Oct 16, 2026
Cite
- Discharge
About this data
- Source
- US Geological Survey (USGS)
- Series
- Daily mean streamflow (discharge)
- Geography
- Willamette River at Portland
- Unit
- cfs
- Calculation
- Daily mean
- Last observation
- Oct 15, 2026
- Update frequency
- Daily
Now 7,720 cfs, 34% below the 5-yr median.
Willamette flow at Portland rose to 7,720 cfs, up 23.5% on the week and 15.1% on the month. The gauge sits 34% below the 5-year median for mid-October and 26.5% below last year.
| Period | Current | Prior | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week over week | 7,720 cfs | 6,250 cfs | +23.5% |
| Month over month | 7,720 cfs | 6,710 cfs | +15.1% |
| Year over year | 7,720 cfs | 10,500 cfs | -26.5% |
| vs 5-yr median | 7,720 cfs | 11,700 cfs | -34.0% |
| Reading | Discharge |
|---|---|
| Lowest on record for this week | 7,030 cfs |
| Median for this week | 11,700 cfs |
| Highest on record for this week | 18,100 cfs |
Previous weeks
An earlier week
Willamette discharge at Portland is 7,050 cfs, running 36% below the 5-year median. Flow dropped 5.9% on the week but is 4.0% above the month-ago level. Year over year, discharge fell 29.2%.
Week of Oct 7, 2026
Willamette at Portland reached 7,490 cfs through Oct 7, 22% below the 5-year median. Flow bounced 13.8% on the week but slid 28% through the month as discharge waned past peak runoff season. Year-over-year discharge was flat at -0.5%.
Week of Sep 29, 2026
Willamette flow at Portland fell to 6,580 cfs, down 21.7% on the week. Month-over-month the gauge has recovered 23.0%, but it remains 17% below the 5-year median.
Week of Sep 23, 2026
Willamette flow at Portland fell to 5,490 cfs, down 9.4% on the week and 8.8% on the month. Year-over-year the decline reaches 27.6%, with current flow 28% below the 5-year median of 7,580 cfs.
About Willamette River at Portland
The Willamette River at Portland ran 7,720 cfs on Oct 15, 2026: 7,720 cubic feet of water passing the gauge every second (what cfs means), or about 15,313 acre-feet a day. That is 34% below the 5-year median of 11,700 cfs for the date. A month earlier it ran 6,710 cfs on Sep 15, 2026, so the river has risen 15% since then. A few miles below this gauge the Willamette enters the Columbia, well downstream of the Columbia River at The Dalles gauge, so none of this water is counted in that reading.
USGS gage 14211720 sits on the Willamette River at Portland, at the Morrison Bridge, near the bottom of a valley that drains about 11,200 square miles between the Cascades and the Coast Range. Thirteen federal dams sit on its tributaries, operated by the Corps of Engineers for winter flood control and for summer flow augmentation in the mainstem.
The Willamette is a rain river rather than a snowmelt river, so a normal year is dominated by winter storm peaks between November and March and settles into a low, stable, largely reservoir-supported summer. Storm peaks arrive and pass within days. The gage sits close enough to the Columbia that its record is tidally influenced at low flow, which is worth knowing before reading small day-to-day movements as hydrology. Low summer readings are the ones that matter locally, for temperature and dissolved oxygen in the reach through the city and for the fish using it.