WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW
—— ft above typical
Finding the top signal on the water…
Live river level, flow, historical records and forecast for Sherman Creek at Shermans Dale in PA, United States, built from official government gauge data.
Sherman Creek at Shermans Dale is in the Lower Susquehanna-Swatara watershed in Pennsylvania.
The creek’s usual high water comes in March, when the typical level is 2.03 ft (0.62 m). By September, the typical level falls to 1.02 ft (0.31 m). That seasonal swing is 12.1 in (30.8 cm), which is the range a dock, intake, or low-water crossing has to live with over the year.
For this part of Pennsylvania, winter and spring rain and melt set the annual peaks. Summer is usually the lower-flow season, and late summer can still bring sharp floods if a tropical remnant reaches the basin. On this gauge, that means the creek can spend long stretches near its lower seasonal level, then jump quickly when weather turns wet.
The station drains 207 sq mi (536 km2) above the gauge, so what happens upstream matters to the reading here. For anglers, that is the difference between a steady reach and a creek that can change in a day. For anyone with a pump or crossing near the channel, the monthly shift is modest, but the storms are not.
The record high is 10.14 ft (3.09 m), set in September 2011. The record low is 0.78 ft (0.24 m), set in September 2016. Those two marks bracket how far this creek has moved in the station record.
The highest month in the seasonal pattern is March, and the lowest month is September. That lines up with the general seasonal cycle, but the record low also shows that September can reach very low water.
There is no fastest 24-hour rise listed in the facts here, so I cannot give a warning-time number for sudden jumps. When that figure is available, it is one of the most practical numbers on the page because it tells you how fast the creek has risen before.
The hero number on this page is today’s reading compared with the median for this calendar day across the station record. That is more useful than raw elevation alone because it shows whether the creek is running typical for the date, higher than usual, or lower than usual for Sherman Creek.
This station is operated by the USGS, and the record spans more than 50 years.
Readings come from official government gauges and are rolled into daily records: the daily mean, high and low for every day on record. Each calendar day gets its own baseline from the full history, so the level you see is compared against what this specific date usually looks like rather than an annual average.
Real-time water levels, forecasts, and alerts for lakes and rivers across Canada, the US and the UK. Built on official government data.
Nibi Metrics tracks more than 13,000 gauged lakes and rivers across Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, reading directly from official federal monitoring networks: the Water Survey of Canada, the United States Geological Survey, Quebec's provincial hydrometric network, and the Environment Agency for England. Every number on the platform is measured, not modelled - taken from a government gauge on the water itself and compared against that location's own historical record for this exact date.
The level right now, in feet or metres, updated as the source agency publishes new readings - for many stations that is every five to fifteen minutes. How today compares to typical: every location carries its own typical-for-this-date band built from its historical record, so a reading is never just a number - it is above, below, or near what this water usually does on this calendar day. Which way it is moving: a measured RISING, FALLING, or STEADY verdict computed from the gauge's own recent readings, with the rate of change - the difference between a flood ending and one beginning. What comes next: level forecasts up to 72 hours ahead, driven by the gauge's recent behaviour, upstream water, and quantitative precipitation forecasts, alongside live radar, lightning, and weather for the surrounding region.
Set a threshold on any location - a level, a distance above typical, or a rate of climb - and Nibi emails or notifies you the moment the gauge crosses it. Cottagers use it for spring freshet, anglers for river conditions, marinas and municipalities for operations. The scanning runs around the clock against the same measured data shown on every page.
Nibi means water in Anishinaabemowin. The platform began at a family cottage on Lake Muskoka, Ontario, where the spring melt floods the shoreline most years and the only forecast was standing on the dock, looking, and guessing. It grew into an independent, member-funded platform run by Muskoka Research Inc. - no investors, no data resale, and a privacy policy shorter than most cookie banners. The core data is free for everyone, forever; paid plans add automation like multi-location alerts, deep history, and reports.
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