WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW
—— ft above typical
Finding the top signal on the water…
Live river level, flow, historical records and forecast for Town Creek near Oldtown in MD, United States, built from official government gauge data.
Town Creek near Oldtown is a river in the Cacapon-Town watershed, Maryland.
The seasonal pattern is straightforward: the highest typical level is in March at 3.16 ft (0.96 m), and the lowest typical level is in September at 1.83 ft (0.56 m). That is a typical annual swing of 15.9 in (40.5 cm).
For people using the creek, that means spring brings the higher water to watch, while late summer is the part of the year when levels are most likely to be low. In a Mid-Atlantic setting, that fits the seasonality you expect from rain-driven floods in winter and spring, with summer low flows between storms.
The record high at this station is 12.71 ft (3.87 m), set in May 2025. The record low is 1.56 ft (0.48 m), set in September 2010.
With 50 years on record, those two marks show the spread this creek can cover. A high-water mark near 12.71 ft (3.87 m) is a very different channel state from the low end at 1.56 ft (0.48 m), so docks, crossings, and intakes need to tolerate a wide range of conditions.
No fastest 24-hour rise is listed in the facts here, so there is nothing to report on warning time from this page.
The hero number on this page should be read against the median for this calendar day, not as a raw elevation on its own. That matters because the same level can mean very different things depending on the season. A reading that is high for September may be ordinary in March.
This station is a USGS site, so the comparison is to the USGS record at Town Creek near Oldtown. With more than 50 years of record, that day-by-day median gives a better sense of whether the creek is running high, low, or near normal for this date than a single stage value ever could.
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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