Nationally, USGS surface-water data includes more than 850,000 station
years of time-series data that describe stream levels, streamflow
(discharge), reservoir and lake levels, surface-water quality, and
rainfall. The data are collected by automatic recorders and manual measurements at field installations across
the Nation.
Data are collected by field personnel or relayed through telephones or
satellites to offices where it is stored and processed. The data
relayed through the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite
(GOES) system are processed automatically in near real time, and in
many cases, real-time data are available
online within minutes.
Once a complete day of readings are received from a site, daily
summary data are generated and stored in the data base. Recent provisional daily data are updated on the
web once a day when the computation is completed.
Annually, the USGS finalizes and publishes the daily data in a series
of water-data reports. Daily streamflow
data and peak data are updated
annually following publication of the reports.
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