Illinois River level at Gore
Oklahoma · Fishing & wading
Measured at USGS 07198000 — Illinois River near Gore, OK · NWS forecast point GORO2
Reading taken · as of 58 min ago
Below normal — good wading, low and clear
At 63 CFS, this gauge is in the lowest quarter of the 72 years USGS has recorded for this date (1954–2026), at 25% of the 252 CFS median.
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Flood stages at Gore
National Weather Service categories for gauge GORO2, WFO TSA. Impact wording is the NWS's own, verbatim.
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Minor flood 23.0 ft
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Action 19.0 ft
- Right now 6.48 ft
Flow history at Gore
Daily values from USGS 07198000, updated every 15 to 60 minutes; NWS forecast for GORO2 reissued through the day. Provisional.
Highest crests on record at Gore
12 on record
| Stage | Flow | Date |
|---|---|---|
| 30.20 ft | 180,000 CFS | May 11, 1950 |
| 25.38 ft | 118,000 CFS | Apr 15, 1945 |
| 24.50 ft | 110,000 CFS | May 11, 1943 |
| 23.81 ft | — | Dec 30, 2015 |
| 17.96 ft | 15,600 CFS | May 24, 1990 |
| 16.18 ft | 43,900 CFS | Apr 20, 1941 |
| 15.09 ft | 40,200 CFS | Aug 16, 1948 |
| 14.95 ft | 38,900 CFS | Nov 1, 1941 |
| 14.10 ft | 7,310 CFS | Jan 15, 1991 |
| 13.70 ft | 18,100 CFS | Jun 9, 1957 |
Crests published by the National Weather Service.
About Illinois River at Gore
The three largest floods in this station's history all happened before the record this page compares against begins. USGS publishes daily statistics here from 1954, but the annual peak series reaches back to 1924 and its top three entries are 180,000 CFS at 30.2 feet in May 1950, 118,000 in April 1945 and 110,000 in May 1943. The largest peak since is 43,900 CFS, less than a quarter of the 1950 figure.
The modern gauge, below Lake Tenkiller, behaves differently. The published monthly medians run from 292 CFS in October to 2,090 in April, and the whole daily series from March 1924 onward fits between 2.1 CFS on 16 September 1959 and 147,000 CFS on 11 May 1950. The NWS ladder here defines only the lower rungs: action stage 19 feet, minor flood 23, with no moderate or major published.
Reservoir feeding this stretch
Flow here is set by releases from Lake Tenkiller. A full pool usually means more water on its way down.
Illinois River at Gore — common questions
6 questions
Does the record high on this page describe the river as it is now?
Not really, and it is worth being explicit about it. The 147,000 CFS daily mean of 11 May 1950 and the 180,000 CFS peak of the same date both predate the 1954 start of the published statistics window. Four of the five largest peaks on file are from the 1940s and early 1950s. The largest crest since is 23.81 feet, in December 2015.
What flood categories are defined here?
Only two. Action stage is 19 feet and minor flood is 23 feet at the Gore forecast point; moderate and major are not published. Since the record crest is 30.2 feet and the second highest is 25.38, both sit above the top defined rung, which limits how much the category language on this page can tell you about a large event.
How does the Canadian at Whitefield compare?
It is the longest peer overlap in this batch: 31,953 days since April 1939, on a gauge 23.5 miles away. The two correlate at 0.598 in log flow and this gauge runs at a median of about 0.37 times the Canadian's discharge. Eighty-seven years of shared record producing a middling correlation is a reasonable description of two regulated rivers in the same weather.
How do releases from Lake Tenkiller affect this stretch?
Directly and fast. When the dam generates, flow here can climb by an order of magnitude within the hour, with no rain anywhere in the basin. That sudden release is the real hazard on a tailwater. The pool level is on lakelvl.com, linked below.
Is Illinois River at Gore high or low for this time of year?
The USGS median flow for late September here is 252 CFS, from 72 years of record (1954–2026). Today sits in the lowest quarter of those years, at 25% 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 07198000 every 15 to 60 minutes, and the National Weather Service reissues the flood forecast for GORO2 a few times a day — more often when the river is rising. This page refreshes from both when you open it. The timestamp is in the gauge's local time.