Focused gages
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White Mountains Crossing Context
WMNF Water Conditions
Real-time White Mountains streamflow, gage-height, and crossing-context data for trip planning, runoff awareness, and river-check days.
Crossings can change quickly
This tool is for trip planning and live context, not a safe/unsafe crossing decision engine. Rainfall, snowmelt, upstream releases, forecast rises, ice, debris, and channel shape can all change a crossing faster than a summary card can keep up.
Treat rising or stale readings conservatively, and verify the actual crossing when you arrive.
Notice: NH48 Info fetches official USGS water data server-side and republishes it through same-origin NH48 APIs, then enriches the White Mountains snapshot with compatible public NWPS, HADS, and NHDES context. USGS remains the authoritative source for observed streamflow and gage height when available.
Overview
This tool combines official USGS stream gages with NH48 trailhead context and public flood/metadata overlays so you can quickly see which drainages are fresh, aging, stale, historical, forecast-only, or missing before you commit to a route with meaningful brook or river concerns.
Live map and report
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Interpreting the readings
Streamflow and gage height answer different questions. Streamflow shows the estimated volume moving past a station, while gage height shows how high the water is at that instrument. Forecast, modeled, and historical-only records are useful context, but they are not the same as a current live observation. A crossing can still be awkward when one is only modestly elevated if the channel is steep, braided, icy, or full of debris.
Fresh data is usually within the last two hours. Aging data is older but still useful for context. Stale or missing data should push you toward extra caution, especially if a route depends on early unbridged crossings.
Source and refresh details
NH48 Info fetches and normalizes official USGS water data server-side, then enriches the White Mountains snapshot with compatible public context from sources such as NOAA/NWS NWPS, HADS cross-references, and New Hampshire state watershed feeds where available. The public same-origin entry points for this tool are /api/usgs-water-conditions, /api/usgs-water-conditions/site/{siteNo}, and /api/usgs-water-conditions/flood-impacts.
If one upstream source fails, NH48 may continue serving the most recent successful cached payload with a stale-data warning instead of dropping the map entirely. Observed flow and stage are kept separate from forecast, historical, proxy, and support-only context.
Safety and responsibility
Important: This page is a planning aid. It does not replace field judgment, route scouting, current weather, official closures, or posted signs. Do not use a single gage reading as proof that a crossing is safe. If the consequences are high, choose the more conservative interpretation.