New River conditions

Live reading at Thurmond

The panel does not guess. When the newest USGS value is more than six hours old it says the reading is stale, and when the service fails to answer it says the gauge is unavailable; neither case shows a band. USGS labels recent values provisional, marked "P" in the feed. The seven-day line under the reading is history only: this page has no official river forecast for Thurmond and no published travel time for water coming down from Hinton, so nothing here predicts where the river goes next.

Adventures on the Gorge lists its Lower New trip for April to October, and the panel's season line uses those months. Some other trip pages print May to October instead, among them ACE's Upper New trip page, which covers a different section of the river, and River Expeditions' trip list. For how rafting season fits the rest of the calendar, see best time to visit.

What each band means

The bands are keyed to discharge at Thurmond. Every edge sits on a figure that ACE or American Whitewater published, converted with the Park Service's gauge table where the source speaks in feet, and the live panel marks whichever band the current reading falls in. They describe commercial trips on the Lower New; the trips themselves are covered in rafting the New River.

Private boaters get a sterner line from the Park Service's private boater page: "The New River below Thurmond is suitable only for advanced and expert paddlers." The same page says, "Running whitewater rivers is inherently risky."

1. Low: below 1,000 cfs Current reading

   Source: ACE Lower New trip page; also Adventures on the Gorge guest policies

   ACE lists commercial Lower New trips from just below 1,000 cfs, so this reading is near or below the bottom of that range. Adventures on the Gorge says it may change the river, section or boat size for extremely high or low water.

2. Normal range: 1,000 to 11,400 cfs Current reading

   Source: American Whitewater, Lower New; also NPS gauge conversion table, ACE Lower New trip page

   This reading is inside the flows ACE lists for commercial Lower New trips. American Whitewater says most agree the optimal level is 2 feet on the Fayette Station gauge, which the Park Service conversion table puts at 4,440 cfs at Thurmond.

3. Big water: 11,400 to 15,250 cfs Current reading

   Source: American Whitewater, Lower New; also NPS gauge conversion table, ACE Lower New trip page

   American Whitewater, which measures this reach in feet on the Fayette Station gauge, tells paddlers without big water paddling skills to stay off above 6 feet; the Park Service conversion table puts 6 feet on that gauge at 11,400 cfs. This reading is still inside the American Whitewater range for the Thurmond gauge, 500 to 15,250 cfs, and inside the flows ACE lists for commercial trips.

4. Very high: 15,250 to 32,000 cfs Current reading

   Source: American Whitewater, Lower New; also NPS gauge conversion table, ACE Lower New trip page

   This reading is above the American Whitewater range for the Thurmond gauge, which ends at 15,250 cfs, and the same page says there are no real eddies above 10 feet, which the Park Service table lists as 23,800 cfs for the Fayette Station gauge. American Whitewater also says the Park Service cuts off put-ins for commercial rafting trips at 12 feet, a level the table does not reach, while ACE lists commercial trips up to about 32,000 cfs.

5. Above published commercial limits: 32,000 cfs and up Current reading

   Source: ACE Lower New trip page; also ACE FAQ, Adventures on the Gorge guest policies

   This reading is above the highest flow ACE lists for commercial Lower New trips, about 32,000 cfs. ACE says it gives a full rain check when it deems conditions unsafe, and Adventures on the Gorge says it may change the river or section for extremely high water, so call your outfitter before driving.

Where the sources disagree

American Whitewater's cfs range for the Lower New starts at 500 cfs, well under the commercial floor ACE lists. The low band follows ACE because this page is about commercial trips.

American Whitewater also gives the reach two different tops. Its Thurmond range tops out where the big-water band ends, while its calculated Fayette Station gauge runs to 8 feet, which the Park Service table converts to 17,200 cfs. The bands take the Thurmond figure, since it needs no conversion.

The big-water edge rests on one American Whitewater sentence: "If you do not have big water paddling skills then stay off above 6 feet." It names no gauge. The paragraph before it names the Fayette Station gauge, and this page reads it that way. Read on the Thurmond scale instead, 6 feet would land somewhere between the table's 5,820 and 7,550 cfs rows.

The hardest gap is the commercial cutoff. The same page says "At 12ft the Park Service cutoffs put-ins for commercial rafting trips," without naming a gauge, and the Park Service's own private boater page does not mention a cutoff at all. The conversion table ends at 10 feet on the Fayette Station gauge, 23,800 cfs, so 12 feet on either scale is somewhere above that. No source gives the discharge, and the cutoff may fall inside the very high band.

Gauley release calendar, 2026

Gauley Season, in the words of the Park Service's Gauley whitewater page, "begins the first weekend after Labor Day, and continues for six weekends." The Army Corps of Engineers runs Summersville Dam, and its 2026 Whitewater Schedule of Releases, updated September 4, 2026, sets a target flow of 2,800 cfs for every window. The dates below appear on both the Corps table and the Park Service page. The hours and the flow are the Corps' alone. Outfitter trips on those days are the subject of Gauley season rafting.

What does 2,800 cfs mean? It is a release rate: cubic feet of water per second leaving the dam into the Gauley, a different river from the New, so the Thurmond bands above do not apply to it. The Corps' C.J. Hamilton, quoted by WV MetroNews in 2019, called 2,800 cfs "the best level for the commercial rafting industry."

Notes on the same Corps page add an hour of release on September 19 to 21 for Gauley Fest, which the Corps lists for September 17 to 20; the longer hours are already in the table. The notes also put Bridge Day on October 17, the Saturday of the final release weekend, and both events are on the events calendar. In October the Corps says it will provide 750 cfs all day for fishing on the days without a whitewater release.

One Park Service document disagrees about the end of the season. Its letter to Gauley boaters gives the 2026 boating season as "September 11-October 17, 2026," a day shorter than the Corps table and the Park Service's own whitewater page, which both run releases on Saturday and Sunday, October 17 and 18. This page follows the Corps.

The Corps' own numbers differ on the clock, too. Its CWMS outflow forecast, retrieved September 8, started the first weekend's 2,800 cfs an hour later than the table on Friday through Sunday and ended it an hour later on Monday. Nothing published explains the gap, so the hours shown are the table's.

On release days the live panel adds gage height from USGS 03189600, just below the dam. It shows feet only, because that station's discharge record has gone stale.

River levels by phone

The Park Service's private boater page lists four numbers that give river levels. That page was last updated April 13, 2022, and none of the numbers was called for this page, so treat this as the 2022 list until someone confirms it by phone.

For a trip question, try the Canyon Rim Visitor Center line first. It is the only number on the list answered by a person, and the Park Service says the visitor center can give a summary of all river level information by 9:30 a.m. each morning.

The Gauley number, 304-872-5809, also shows up on a West Virginia Division of Natural Resources page as the Summersville Lake conditions line, so the two listings may describe one recording. For the release schedule itself, the Corps schedule page gives Summersville project operations at 304-872-3412, option 1.

How to read the gauge

Two numbers come off the Thurmond station. Discharge is the volume of water passing the gauge, measured in cubic feet per second, or cfs. Stage, also called gage height, is the water surface in feet on that station's own scale, and the bands on this page use discharge.

Feet mean little until someone names the gauge. American Whitewater describes the Lower New in feet on the Fayette Station gauge while USGS reads Thurmond, and the two scales differ. The Park Service table puts 2 feet at Fayette Station, the level American Whitewater says most agree is optimal, at 4.9 feet on the Thurmond gauge and 4,440 cfs.

That Fayette Station number does not come from a USGS station. American Whitewater labels its own Fayette Station reading "CALCULATED," and this page does not have the location of a physical Fayette Station gauge or the name of whoever reads it. Thurmond is a USGS station with a live public feed, and American Whitewater keys its Lower New cfs range to it. That is why the site reads Thurmond.

The Park Service conversion table

This table comes from the Park Service's private boater page, last updated April 13, 2022, which gives no separate date or rating basis for the table. It steps in whole feet on the Fayette Station gauge and stops at 10 feet, so it cannot convert a half-foot level such as 2.5 feet, or the 12-foot cutoff. No source this page uses says whether it still matches the current USGS rating at Thurmond.

Why the Gauley reading is feet only

USGS 03189600, on the Gauley below Summersville Dam, still reports gage height. Its discharge series has gone stale. When the USGS instantaneous values service was queried on September 8, 2026, it returned a discharge for that station of 1,470 cfs dated September 30, 2003, because the service hands back the last value it holds no matter how old. So the site reads stage only at that station, and the live panel drops any reading more than six hours old.

Booking around the numbers

Outfitters make the call on trip day. Adventures on the Gorge's guest policies let it move a trip to another river or section for "extremely high or low water," and ACE's FAQ gives a full rain check if ACE deems conditions unsafe. To compare the companies before booking, see which rafting company.