SO503, Spring 2008

River Flow

• SUSQUEHANNA RIVER AT CONOWINGO, MD
• PATUXENT RIVER NEAR BOWIE, MD
• RAPPAHANNOCK RIVER NEAR FREDERICKSBURG, VA
• JAMES RIVER AT CARTERSVILLE, VA
• POTOMAC RIVER NEAR WASH, DC LITTLE FALLS PUMP STA

Pick one of these stations (or a similar one, insuring that it is a "major" stream with a good long term record), and get the Time series, Daily Data, for discharge.  You can do the following computations using any tools that you want.

• For each water year, compute the date when the 50th percentile of the flow goes pas the gauge, and graph the results.  Is there any trend over the period of record?
• For each water year, compute the average discharge.  Normalize this in terms of the number of standard deviations above/below the mean.
• Based on your results, do you see any trends in river flow over the last 50 years?