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USGS Water Data for Massachusetts

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ICE EFFECTS ON STREAMFLOW

The formation of ice on rivers can cause discharge values to appear unusually high. Display of these erroneous discharge data may result in improper assessment of flow conditions and misuse of the data. For this reason, display of discharge values for streams significantly affected by ice may be disabled from view. Display of discharge data will resume when ice conditions are no longer present. Discharge values for streams minimally affected by ice will continue to be displayed. Flows for streams with these conditions appear to increase during the night and decrease to near-base-line conditions around midday. To estimate the correct discharge for these streams, use the flow rate that corresponds to the bottom of the discharge curve, rather than the peak that corresponds to the top of the curve. Note that this method of estimation is possible only when no surface runoff is occurring. Daily mean discharges for periods of both significant and minimal ice-effect will be estimated and published in the Annual Water-Data Report for the water year in which they occurred.


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Introduction

The U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) National Water Information System (NWIS) is a comprehensive and distributed application that supports the acquisition, processing, and long-term storage of water data. USGS Water Data for the Nation Site serves as the publicly available portal to a geographically seamless set of much of the water data maintained within NWIS (additional background).

USGS Water Data for the Nation Site provides access to water data from over 1.5 million sites in all 50 States and additional border and territorial sites. The data are organized within the categories listed to the left.

The water data available via this site have been acquired as part of the USGS investigations of the occurrence, quantity, quality, distribution, and movement of the surface and underground waters that constitute the Nation's water resources. Additional information about the USGS and water resources of the Nation is available at water.usgs.gov.

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