OCT, SUNDAY, Sept 27 SEVEN ISLANDS

[martha james]

The plan is to meet at the boat landing in New Canton at 10:30. If the gauge at Scottsville is over 600 cfs, the trip is on. There's rain in the forecast so fingers crossed. Let me know who's inte rested.Check back by Friday to see if the trip is on.

[TedMc]

The USGS water levels for the James at Scottsville has gone from Sundays reading of 880 cfs to todays reading of 520 cfs. What?
A review of the 7 day cfs levels show the Lynchburg dams controlling the water levels. A typical 24 hours shows highs of 800 cfs to lows of 400 cfs and repeating.
Martha wants 600 cfs which I have done before using river left channel. The Sunday midday level is not something I can predict. Anybody want to offer a midday number to help Martha.

[Barb]

Tapping on the graph and expanding it , contracting it, moving it around, you can get a time reading. It looks like the highs are late night/ early morning and the lows are around 5 pm ( very generalized, you should look to be sure I’m seeing this right - I’m a newbie to gauge geeking). So the levels are dropping during the paddling window.

[Daryl]

Barb is on the money. Using the old legacy USGS stuff, the table format gives a nice breakdown of cfs by time. My guess is you'd have between 600 & 700 cfs with a typical 11am start time. It wouldn't drop fast necessarily but would most likely be below 600 cfs by the time you get off the river. An earlier start would probably get a little more water, but not sure you'd tell the difference.


https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/uv?cb_0 ... 2026-09-24

[Ameyerrx]

I am interested. What is the predicted mileage and potential end time?
Andrew

[martha james]

Andrew, I sent you an email. I'm going to cancel this trip. There just isn't enough water. If we tried it at the current level, it could end up taking us 6 or more hours cause we'd be walking a lot. I'm so bummed about this.