Is the Guadalupe River flooding?
The Guadalupe River is tracked by 20 USGS streamgauges in Texas. 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 Guadalupe River is running normal, rising toward flood stage, or already flooding. 12 of 20 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 Texas river levels.
River facts
The longest-running gauge on this river is Guadalupe River near Spring Branch, TX. The highest level ever recorded there was 53.00 ft in 1869. Peak records there go back to 1869 (105 annual peaks). It is currently at 2.43 ft, 50.6 ft below that record.
About the Guadalupe River
The Guadalupe rises in the Texas Hill Country west of Kerrville and runs southeast through New Braunfels and Victoria to San Antonio Bay. It drains a landscape almost purpose-built for flash flooding: thin soil over limestone, steep terrain, and a channel that can go from ankle-deep to lethal in under an hour.
Why this river floods the way it does
The Hill Country sits in what hydrologists call Flash Flood Alley. Limestone bedrock under shallow soil absorbs very little rain, so a storm that would soak into the ground elsewhere runs straight off the hillsides into narrow, steep-sided valleys. Water arrives at the channel fast and concentrated.
That produces a rise measured in minutes rather than hours, and it is why gauge readings on the Guadalupe can be current and still be dangerously out of date by the time you act on them. On this river more than most, a rising trend matters more than the number itself.
The July 2025 flood
Over the July 4th weekend in 2025, extreme rainfall associated with the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry caused catastrophic flash flooding across Central Texas. At least 135 people were killed statewide, the majority along the Guadalupe in Kerr County. Among the dead were 27 campers and staff at Camp Mystic, a girls' camp sited in a low-lying stretch of the floodway.
At Hunt the river reached about 37.5 ft, exceeding the previous record set in July 1987. At Kerrville it peaked near 34.29 ft — the third-highest crest on record there, behind 1932 and 1987. The event is a reminder that this valley's worst floods are not distant history: it has produced record or near-record crests in 1932, 1987, and 2025.
Reading this river
Watch the upstream gauges above Kerrville and Comfort first. Because the response time is so short, an upstream gauge climbing steeply is often the only useful warning a downstream location will get, and it may arrive with very little margin.
Treat any rapid rise on the Guadalupe as significant regardless of the absolute level, and never use a gauge reading to decide whether a low-water crossing is passable. Most flood deaths in Texas happen in vehicles.