James River at Buchanan, VA
Botetourt County, Virginia · USGS 02019500
Latest observation
What this gauge represents: This gauge measures conditions on James River at its USGS monitoring location in Botetourt County; conditions elsewhere on the waterway may differ.
Observed · 1 hour ago
Observed
How to read these numbers
How much water moves past the gauge each second. Higher numbers mean more water is moving downstream.
The water-surface height at this gauge. It is useful for tracking rises, falls and flood thresholds, but it is not the river's total depth.
How much the latest reading has risen or fallen compared with roughly 24 hours earlier.
The typical streamflow for this date based on USGS historical statistics. A multiple such as 3× means current flow is about three times the historical median.
Get Water Data's plain-language summary of current flow, historical context and recent direction.
Official action and flood thresholds where available. These levels are specific to each gauge location.
Gauge height and flood stage are station-specific. A 12-foot reading at one gauge should not be directly compared with 12 feet at another.
Below historical median · Falling
Streamflow is currently 466 ft³/s, 17% below the historical median for this date. Flow has fallen 18 CFS over the past 24 hours.
USGS-reported historical daily median for 09-27: 563 ft³/s · Based on USGS day-of-year statistics
How trends & context are calculated →Streamflow trend
Daily mean streamflow · Aug 28–Sep 25 · dates shown in UTC · 29 observations
Look at the data (29 rows)
| Date (UTC) | Daily mean |
|---|---|
| Aug 28, 2026, 12:00 AM | 1,280 CFS |
| Aug 29, 2026, 12:00 AM | 1,800 CFS |
| Aug 30, 2026, 12:00 AM | 1,030 CFS |
| Aug 31, 2026, 12:00 AM | 801 CFS |
| Sep 1, 2026, 12:00 AM | 671 CFS |
| Sep 2, 2026, 12:00 AM | 605 CFS |
| Sep 3, 2026, 12:00 AM | 556 CFS |
| Sep 4, 2026, 12:00 AM | 526 CFS |
| Sep 5, 2026, 12:00 AM | 517 CFS |
| Sep 6, 2026, 12:00 AM | 520 CFS |
| Sep 7, 2026, 12:00 AM | 490 CFS |
| Sep 8, 2026, 12:00 AM | 472 CFS |
| Sep 9, 2026, 12:00 AM | 464 CFS |
| Sep 10, 2026, 12:00 AM | 459 CFS |
| Sep 11, 2026, 12:00 AM | 449 CFS |
| Sep 12, 2026, 12:00 AM | 456 CFS |
| Sep 13, 2026, 12:00 AM | 506 CFS |
| Sep 14, 2026, 12:00 AM | 665 CFS |
| Sep 15, 2026, 12:00 AM | 545 CFS |
| Sep 16, 2026, 12:00 AM | 499 CFS |
| Sep 17, 2026, 12:00 AM | 932 CFS |
| Sep 18, 2026, 12:00 AM | 521 CFS |
| Sep 19, 2026, 12:00 AM | 461 CFS |
| Sep 20, 2026, 12:00 AM | 435 CFS |
| Sep 21, 2026, 12:00 AM | 421 CFS |
| Sep 22, 2026, 12:00 AM | 458 CFS |
| Sep 23, 2026, 12:00 AM | 486 CFS |
| Sep 24, 2026, 12:00 AM | 461 CFS |
| Sep 25, 2026, 12:00 AM | 476 CFS |
About this gauge
Official USGS station
Get Water Data organizes provisional public monitoring data from the U.S. Geological Survey.
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