11/12/1927
LS01442_000 - UVM Landscape Change Program, submitted by Elizabeth Stanley Mann
04/16/2004
LS01442_001 - UVM Landscape Change Program, submitted by Elizabeth Stanley Mann
06/9/2018
Google Earth imagery
These images show the progression of a meandering alluvial stream across its floodplain. In 1927, the river is still very high from the flooding and curves gradually ahead upstream from the bar in the lower left corner of the image. By 2004, the cutbanks of the Winooski curve much more sharply. There is another bar / depositional area in the lower left corner of the 2004 image that may have developed since the 1927 flood or may simply be underwater in the 1927 image. The 2018 image shows a low water level for the Winooski and lots of sediment in the channel.
Annual Maximum Flood Probability of the Winooski River at Essex (above)
Statistics for Annual Average Discharge and Annual Maximum Discharge of the Winooski River at Essex (below)
Max flood events have higher discharge than average streamflow, so we expect to see larger values for the annual max event series compared to the annual average series. The annual maximum flood series has a percent standard deviation of 52%, while the annual average stream discharge has a much lower percent standard deviation at 24%. This makes sense, considering that the annual average discharge dataset only goes back to water year 1929 and therefore does not include the November 1927 flood. The mean discharge for the max flood series is about twelve times greater than that of the annual average dataset. The max flood series also has a standard deviation twenty-six times larger than the annual average series. It's obvious from the probability plot above that the 1927 flood is an outlier with a lot of leverage in the dataset.
The table at left describes both the max flood discharge data and average annual discharge data sorted by water year. The table also includes each year's maximum flood event ranking, the recurrence interval for the max flood event and the probability of a flood event of this magnitude occurring in a given year. There is a missing value in annual average discharge because USGS did not have water year 1928 on record.