Streamflow
Above normalYampa River near Maybell streamflow
Daily mean discharge, Yampa-Green basin, Colorado
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
- Yampa River near Maybell
- Unit
- cfs
- Calculation
- Daily mean
- Last observation
- Oct 15, 2026
- Update frequency
- Daily
Now 364 cfs, 27% above the 5-yr median.
Discharge jumped to 364 cfs, up 571.6% on the week as flows surged across the basin. The month-over-month increase stands at 1,310.9%, with current readings 27% above the 5-year median. Year-over-year, discharge is down 6.7%.
| Period | Current | Prior | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week over week | 364 cfs | 54 cfs | +571.6% |
| Month over month | 364 cfs | 26 cfs | +1,310.9% |
| Year over year | 364 cfs | 390 cfs | -6.7% |
| vs 5-yr median | 364 cfs | 286 cfs | +27.3% |
| Reading | Discharge |
|---|---|
| Lowest on record for this week | 123 cfs |
| Median for this week | 286 cfs |
| Highest on record for this week | 505 cfs |
Previous weeks
An earlier week
Yampa discharge at Maybell is 189 cfs, up 177.5% from the prior week. The gauge recovered from 28 cfs a month ago but remains 47.8% below year-ago levels and 30% below the 5-year median.
Week of Oct 7, 2026
Yampa flow at Maybell is 68 cfs, down 28.8% from a week prior and 65.6% year over year. The current reading sits 56% below the 5-year median.
Week of Sep 30, 2026
Yampa River near Maybell fell to 104 cfs, down 47.5% on the week. Month over month the flow rose 24.3%, but it sits 24% below the 5-year median. Year over year, discharge is down 17.5%.
Week of Sep 23, 2026
The Yampa near Maybell ran at 198 cfs, up 163 cfs from the prior week. Month-to-month discharge rose 156 cfs, and year-over-year flow is up 72 cfs. The river stands 22% above the 5-year median.
About Yampa River near Maybell
The Yampa River near Maybell ran 364 cfs on Oct 15, 2026: 364 cubic feet of water passing the gauge every second (what cfs means), or about 722 acre-feet a day. That is 27% above the 5-year median of 286 cfs for the date. A month earlier it ran 26 cfs on Sep 15, 2026, so the river has risen 1,311% since then. Below Maybell the Yampa joins the Green River in Dinosaur National Monument, downstream of Flaming Gorge Reservoir, so its runoff reaches Lake Powell without passing through a major dam.
USGS gage 09251000 measures the Yampa River near Maybell, Colorado, in the northwest corner of the state above the river's canyon and its confluence with the Green in Dinosaur National Monument. The Yampa is the largest substantially unregulated river left in the Colorado system: there is no major mainstem storage above this gage, only agricultural diversions in the Yampa Valley, so the line here is close to what the snowpack actually delivered.
That makes its year the textbook one, a low winter baseflow, a steep May rise, a June peak, then a long taper into a very low late summer. It also makes this gage the reference other basins are read against, because it shows runoff without an operating decision layered on top. A low year here is felt immediately: the Yampa has no reservoir to buffer it, so late-summer readings drop far enough to trigger state calls on junior water rights and stress the fishery downstream.