8 documented waterfalls in New York, when each one actually runs, and what the river is doing right now where a gauge exists.
Trail status, closures and safety rules belong to each falls' managing agency, named and linked on every page.
Each card carries the typical big-water window drawn from the falls' actual driver, and the latest USGS reading on its feeding river where a gauge exists. The full page for each falls explains the season, shows today against the USGS percentile band, and quotes the managing agency on access.
The most famous falls on the continent runs on a 1950 treaty: 100,000 cfs must come over during tourist season daytime hours, half that the rest of the time, with the balance sent to power plants.
A 215 foot single plunge past 400 foot gorge cliffs near Ithaca, taller than Niagara, biggest with the Finger Lakes spring runoff and thin by late summer.
Nineteen waterfalls in one walkable mile of stone stairways and tunnels, with a season set as much by the trail calendar as by the creek.
New York's tallest waterfall by the DEC's own account, a 260 foot two-tier drop in the Catskills painted by the Hudson River School and treated with respect by everyone who reads the DEC's warnings.
Three major falls on the Genesee River in the Grand Canyon of the East, with the flow-setting dam conveniently DOWNSTREAM, so what comes over is the river's own weather.
The foaming staircase cascade that names its park, tumbling toward Cayuga Lake beside a gorge trail of stone steps, fullest in the runoff months.
A 167 foot drop over 400 million year old bedrock between Cazenovia and Chittenango, on a creek big enough to keep the falls running year round.
The Shawangunks' photogenic 65 foot plunge in Minnewaska State Park Preserve, an easy carriage-road walk and a four-season photography stop.
Live readings: USGS Water Services (National Water Information System). Instantaneous values and daily statistics services. U.S. Geological Survey data are works of the United States Government and are in the public domain.
Most of New York's documented falls run on snowmelt, so they peak when the high country lets go and fade through the summer. The mix here is 7 snowmelt, 1 regulated across the 8, and 2 of them have an active USGS gauge on or near the stream.
Windows are typical-year climatology from each falls' driver, not forecasts. Live readings and percentile bands are USGS data, public domain; where a page says a river is above or below typical, that comparison is ours and is labelled. Access and safety belong to each falls' managing agency, named on its page. National picture →