Sugar Creek Watershed Characteristics - Water

• Rainfall - Precipitation
• Runoff - Flow Duration Curve
• Runoff - Historic Water and Suspended Sediment Hydrographs
• Wastewater Treatment

RAINFALL

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The average annual precipitation in Caddo County is 29.8 inches. The thirty year (1961-1990) average annual precipitation at Lookeba, Oklahoma (inside the watershed), is slightly higher, at 30.3 inches. The highest monthly averages fall in May, September, and June. About 31 percent of the annual precipitation is in the spring, 29 percent in the summer and fall, and 11 percent in the winter. Precipitation records for Lookeba's weather station date back to 1940, 57 years of record. The ten highest single day (24 hour) precipitation events exceed 4 inches but are no greater than 7.35 inches. The highest and four out of the top ten occurred in September, the second highest and three out of the top ten occurred in May, and the other three out of the top ten have occurred in late summer (August) or Fall (October and November).

LOOKEBA 2 ENE PRECIPITATION NORMALS - INCHES: 1961-1990

Hail storms occurs in the county on an average of 5 years out of every 9. About 75 percent of the storms occur in the months of April through June, and two out of three of them occur between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. The paths of these storms average 4 to 17 miles, and the storms generally move northeastward. Hailstones average about 1-1/2 inches in diameter.

RUNOFF

FLOW DURATION CURVE

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The Agricultural Research Service ARS measured discharge on Sugar Creek near Gracemont, Oklahoma (USGS Gage No. 07327000) from October, 1956 to September, 1974. The U.S. Geological Survey published the daily mean flows of this gage 07327000, in their Water Resources Data for Oklahoma (Part 1. Surface Water Records) annual reports.

The Flow Duration Curve for the period of record - 1956 to 1974, shows for a given mean daily discharge, the percent of time (out of 19 years) that the flow was equaled or exceeded. For example a mean daily discharge of 10 cubic feet per second (cfs) was equaled or exceeded 32 percent of the time in the 19 year record or in other words, the mean daily flow was equal to or greater than 10 cfs for 439 days out of 6,939 days. This Flow Duration Curve is based on a previous record and does not imply a prediction of mean daily flows in the future.

For 19 years of record, the average runoff of the Sugar Creek Watershed above Gracemont was a little under one inch (0.97 inch). Runoff is a volume that is expressed as the depth that the water would attain on a flat surface of equal area to the watershed above the gaging site. In this instance, the drainage area varied from 203 to 208 square miles, due to changes in the stream gage location.

HISTORIC RECORDS - STORM HYDROGRAPHS AND SUSPENDED SEDIMENT DISCHARGES

164 ACRE FEET OF SUSPENDED SEDIMENT PASS GRACEMONT IN 5.5 DAYS

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May 4, 1969 through May 8, 1969, a series of fronts moved across the watershed and left 3.94 inches of precipitation in the Lookeba 2 ENE gage. The resulting runoff of water on Sugar Creek near Gracemont, Oklahoma (USGS Gage 07327000) was 8830 acre-feet and the resulting runoff of sediments is estimated well over 164 acre feet. The synthetic hydrograph shown above, matches instantaneous discharge measurements and runoff volume.

ESTIMATION OF PEAK DISCHARGES

Annual lake evaporation is 63 inches, 69 percent of which occurs from May through October.

WASTEWATER TREATMENT

Gracemont, Binger, and Lookeba each have waste treatment storage lagoons situated on top of the floodplain soils of Sugar Creek.

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