Surface Water

Rattlesnake Creek subbasin has several tributaries. The West Fork, South Fork and East Fork combine to establish the main channel in northern Kiowa County. From there the stream flows northeast. An unnamed ephemeral tributary joins Rattlesnake Creek in southwest Stafford County. Another tributary, Spring Creek, enters the main streambed south of St. John. The other tributary in the subbasin is Wildhorse Creek and it joins Rattlesnake Creek north of St. John. Rattlesnake Creek is a perennial stream from just north of St. John to its northerly bend near Quivira National Wildlife Refuge. Otherwise, the stream is classified as intermittent.  Rattlesnake Creek has two  United States Geological Survey streamflow gages, located at Macksville and Zenith.  The Macksville gage is the upstream gage. The Zenith gage measures inflow to Quivira.

Measurements began in 1960 at the Macksville gage. The Zenith streamflow gage’s first measurement was in 1974. Over the period of record, the average streamflow at Zenith was 43.36 cfs, and 22.7 cfs at Macksville.

In 1984, the Kansas Legislature enacted the Minimum Desirable Streamflow Act for specific United States Geological Survey streamflow gages including Macksville and Zenith.

The Zenith streamflow gage meets Minimum Desirable Streamflow criteria more often than Macksville does. In 2010, Zenith streamflow met MDS all year while Macksville did not meet the MDS criteria about 11 percent of the time, or 41 days.

Baseflow

Staff from the Division of Water Resources Stafford field office and the Groundwater Management District No. 5 measure eleven sites four times a year. The objective of these measurements is to record baseflow. Baseflow is the amount of natural flow in the stream under static conditions. precipitation events can increase streamflow so that the stream does not accurately reflect a steady-state condition. After a precipitation event, staff waits three days prior to measuring streamflow.

Rattlesnake Creek has two U.S. Geological Survey gages installed. Both gages are in Stafford County. The further upstream gage is near Macksville. The Zenith gage is downstream near the entrance of Quivira National Wildlife Refuge.  USGS data from the two gages can be viewed on the  USGS website.  The site also includes historic and real-time data from gage stations in Kansas.

The map represents the gaining, losing, dry and undetermined stretches between manual stream gage sites for the past year. Measurements are in January 2010, April 2010, August 2010 and October 2010. Red indicates a losing stretch. Blue is a gaining stream strecth. Brown is a dry stretch of stream. A green stretch indicates an undetermined condition. An undetermined stretch has an even percentage of conditions. The baseflow at each site is calculated in cubic feet per second. Each site is first evaluated based on the difference in discharge between each gage site. This shows the gaining and losing stream streches during the measurements. When two consecutive sites have no flow, it is considered a dry stretch because there are no discharge numbers to compare. Staff sums the dry, gaining and losing stretches to determine the overall trend for each stretch of the stream.

Even if the stretch is shown as dry or losing, it does not mean that water never flows. The table shows actual measurements for each site. Since the measurements first began in October 2007 the upper reaches have been dry and the lower stretches have been gaining. A few of the middle stretches have been losing at various points during the year.

In 2010, the two upper reaches were dry. The stretch between RSC06 and RSC07 was losing. Ice affected the January measurement.  April and October had losing trends while August had a gaining trend. The rest of the downstream stretches were gaining reaches during the last year.