The flood sequence as a series: the record before the record, then the record

1982–2018 · THE USGS CREST RECORD, TWO ARTICLES' DISCIPLINE IN ONE

A flood sequence is told in two movements — the earlier crests first, then the record flood — and the Kankakee's gauges keep both. The earlier crests. On the Kankakee River near Shelby, the flood of March 1982 holds two of the basin's marks at once: the greatest discharge of record, 7,650 cubic feet per second on 26 March, and the greatest gage height, 12.98 feet on 24 March — one flood measured by flow and by stage, two days apart, and the pair is the argument about the numbers in miniature: a river's "biggest flood" is a figure with a unit attached, and the units disagree. Near Davis, the standing record into this century was 13.52 feet, set in 1985 — itself a record when it was made. The record flood. On 11 January 2008 — a midwinter thaw flood, the basin's characteristic kind — the Davis gauge read 13.59 feet, and the record of 1985 became the record before the record. The February 2018 flood, when 5.61 inches of rain fell at South Bend in the three days of 18–20 February, stands in the series as the basin's modern regional flood; the record crest it is remembered by, on the Elkhart River at Goshen, belongs to another basin and is not imported. The sequence closes with its boundary stated once more: the gauges stand on the Kankakee, in whose headwater country this township lies; Terre Coupee Creek, the town's own water, has no gauge and no crest, and the town's flood history is the basin's — printed at the basin's strength, which is the only strength it has.

Sources:

1. U.S. Geological Survey, gauge records, Kankakee River near Davis and near Shelby, Indiana — the 1982 discharge and stage pair, the 1985 record, the record stage of 11 January 2008; read for this section.
2. National Weather Service, Northern Indiana — the February 2018 rainfall at South Bend; the Elkhart basin's crest expressly excluded.