Is the Cumberland River flooding?
The Cumberland River is tracked by 13 USGS streamgauges in Tennessee. This page compares each gauge’s live water level against its official National Weather Service flood stage, refreshed every 15 minutes, so you can tell whether the Cumberland River is running normal, rising toward flood stage, or already flooding. 7 of 13 gauges have both a usable water-level reading and a published minor flood stage. Gauges without a published flood stage show water level and flow only. For nearby rivers, see all Tennessee river levels.
River facts
The longest-running gauge on this river is Cumberland River at Nashville, TN. The highest level ever recorded there was 58.50 ft in 1793. Peak records there go back to 1793 (170 annual peaks). It is currently at 17.88 ft, 40.6 ft below that record.
| Gauge | Status | Stage | Flood stage | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cumberland River at Celina, TN | No flooding | 15.51 ft | 40 ft | |
| Cumberland River at Edenwold, TN | No flooding | 18.88 ft | 49 ft | |
| Cumberland River at Stones River near Hermitage, TN | No flooding | 19.90 ft | 48 ft | |
| Cumberland River at Omohundro Wtr Plt at Nashville, TN | No flooding | 20.30 ft | 41 ft | |
| Cumberland River at Nashville, TN | No flooding | 17.88 ft | 40 ft | |
| Cumberland River near Bordeaux, TN | No flooding | 16.30 ft | 34 ft | |
| Cumberland River at Ashland City, TN | No flooding | 18.12 ft | 28 ft | |
| Cumberland River at Carthage, TN | No current data | — | 40 ft | — |
| Cumberland River at Old Hickory Dam (Tw), TN | No current data | — | — | — |
| Cumberland River at Briley Pkwy near Inglewood, TN | No current data | — | 47 ft | — |
| Cumberland River at Briley Pkwy at Cockrill Bend | No current data | — | 35 ft | — |
| Cumberland River below Cheatham Dam, TN | No current data | — | — | — |
| Cumberland River below Cordell Hull Dam, TN | No flood stage defined | 448.62 ft | — |
About the Cumberland River
The Cumberland rises in the Appalachian coalfields of southeastern Kentucky, loops through Nashville, and joins the Ohio in western Kentucky. Through middle Tennessee it is a regulated river, shaped by a series of Army Corps of Engineers dams built largely in response to its flood history.
The May 2010 flood
Over 1–2 May 2010, about 13.57 inches of rain fell on Nashville in roughly 36 hours. The Cumberland crested at 51.86 ft in the city — a level not seen since 1937, before the modern flood-control system existed. It did not approach the all-time mark at Nashville, which dates from the eighteenth century and is shown in the river facts above.
The flooding killed around 26 people across Tennessee and Kentucky, eleven of them in greater Nashville, and caused more than $2 billion in damage in Nashville alone. The Grand Ole Opry House, the Opryland Hotel and the Schermerhorn Symphony Center were all inundated. A subsequent review found that warnings reached the public later than they should have.
A regulated river with limits
The Corps dams upstream of Nashville substantially reduce flood peaks in ordinary events, which is why the city went seven decades between comparable floods. That protection is real, but it is not unlimited: 2010 demonstrated that rainfall concentrated on the uncontrolled area below the dams can still overwhelm the system.
Practically, this means the Cumberland's behaviour depends heavily on where the rain falls. Storms centred on the controlled headwaters are absorbed; storms centred on middle Tennessee tributaries are not.
Reading this river
Watch the tributary gauges as well as the mainstem. In 2010 the damage in Nashville was driven substantially by local creeks that rose long before the Cumberland itself crested.
Reservoir releases also move this river without local rain, so a rise on a clear day is not unusual here and is not by itself a sign of flooding.