Buffalo National River level at Ponca
Arkansas · Tubing & floating
Measured at USGS 07055660 — Buffalo River at Ponca, AR
Reading taken · as of 13 min ago
Right around its normal summer float level
At 1.9 CFS, this gauge is inside the middle half of the 16 years USGS has recorded for this date (2009–2025), at 29% of the 6.4 CFS median.
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Flow history at Ponca
Daily values from USGS 07055660, updated every 15 to 60 minutes. Provisional.
About Buffalo National River at Ponca
This is the smallest basin of any gauge in this group, 116 square miles, and it has the widest seasonal range: a published median of 262 CFS in April against 5.8 CFS in September, a swing of roughly forty five to one. August and July both sit at 11 CFS.
The record contains a reading of zero, on 30 June 2012, and an instantaneous peak of 39,000 CFS on 29 October 2009 at a crest of 20.06 feet. That peak works out to about 336 CFS for every square mile of drainage, which is what a steep Ozark basin does with a large rainfall. USGS statistics for this station cover 2009 to 2024, so the window ends two years short of today.
Buffalo National River at Ponca — common questions
6 questions
How low does the upper Buffalo get?
Very low. The published median for September is 5.8 CFS, with July and August at 11 and October at 9.7, against 262 in April and 248 in March. The record includes a daily mean of 0 CFS on 30 June 2012. A late summer reading on this gauge that looks alarmingly small is usually the normal condition, which the percent of normal figure above will confirm.
Is the seasonal comparison on this page current?
Nearly. USGS publishes daily statistics for this station covering 2009 to 2024, so the median this page compares against stops two years short of the present, on about 16 years of observations. The live reading is current. The record high in the daily series, 15,300 CFS, is from 5 November 2024.
How does this compare with the Pruitt gauge downstream?
It is the same river behaving the same way, at about two thirds the volume. Over 6,645 days of overlapping record since 2008 the two correlate at 0.967, the tightest pairing in this group, and this gauge carries a median of about 0.63 times the Pruitt reading 12.4 miles downstream. If this gauge is low, Pruitt is low.
Does rain upstream change Buffalo National River at Ponca quickly?
Yes. It is free-flowing, so rain upstream moves it directly. Several feet in a few hours is normal after a heavy storm.
Is Buffalo National River at Ponca high or low for this time of year?
The USGS median flow for late September here is 6.4 CFS, from 16 years of record (2009–2025). Today sits inside the middle half of those years, at 29% of the median. The comparison is what makes the raw number mean anything: the same reading is a drought on one river and a flood on another.
How often does this reading update?
USGS transmits from gauge 07055660 every 15 to 60 minutes. This page refreshes from USGS when you open it, and the reading is provisional until USGS reviews it. The timestamp is in the gauge's local time.