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Update 4/2/2012:
Discharge data past September 30, 2007 have been moved from IDA to the National Water Information System Web Interface (NWISWeb) . Historical instantaneous values for other parameters are now also available on NWISWeb and users are directed there, or to the related web services, for all data from October 1, 2007 through the present. IDA remains available for discharge data prior to October 1, 2007. Future plans are to move all remaining IDA data to NWISWeb sometime in 2013 at which time IDA will be discontinued. Please address any questions through the "Questions and Feedback" link above.

Help

The Instantaneous Data Archive is a fairly simple interface to the available data and users should generally be able to navigate without difficulty. The following steps should be sufficient to get started.

1. Select the Geographic Area desired. The user will be automatically redirected to list of stations available within that area.
2. Select a station from the list provided and click the "Go to site" button. The user will be directed to the site page.
3. View the "Data Summary Report" by clicking on the link. This will show a detailed summary of the available instantaneous data. An explanation of the format of the report is shown at the bottom. Print or store the report as needed.
4. Enter the dates of interest into the boxes provided, select the output format, and click the "retrieve data" button. An explanation of the output data fields is included at the top of the file.
5. At any time the user can click one of the buttons at the bottom of the page to return to select a different station within the same geographic area or to select a new geographic area.