This is a big one no doubt, peaked at justy a little over the 7680 showing now, and starting to drop.  On the max flows for the last 20 years, this one will take  third or fourth place unless there is more rain and it goes up again, and then it could beat the 9250 showing for October 1 as a max flow (Daily average, instantaneous flow could have been much higher).  I would venture to guess without seeing it that it is the equivalant to the flows 2B and I saw in the fall of 83 or 84 that moved the brick wall  the size of a van across from the Silver Star down into the tail out of Jefferson street.  We will deifnitely see if the LFZ engineering is up to the demands.
 
But I agree with 2B.  I've been working in water for almost 30 years, and I get asked what is going to happen all the time, and the best I can answer is " If X happens or continues, Y is likely to occur."  Every garage sale I go by , I stop and ask if they have any reliable crystal balls for sale, and I have yet to find one.   Last week, when the NWS predicted flooding in Oatka Creek and near flood levels in Black Creek, I told our Emergency Manager that my best professional judgement said just the opposite, and I was correct, but I could have just as easily been wrong if the rainfall intensity had been higher in different places.  Up on the hill, there is a lot of terrain that only varies slightly in elevation, and melt off can get "stored" by snow and ice damming, debris damming, and just puddling until the critical point hits where it all lets go.  The Old Salmon River Road bridge on the Mad River is three 8 or 10  foot culverts with 5 or 6 2 footers above the main culverts, all held in place by  27 cubic foot and 81 cubic foot concrete blocks and tons of gabions and rip rap, and the lumber company has to redo it every few years.  You could drive two trucks side by side down the overflow spillway.  When I'm fishing the drop pool in May I am at least 10 feet below the road level for the top of the dam, maybe 12.  And I've seen pictures of it in this flow and the road has water going over it and the overflow spillway is class 5 whitewater.  This is why it is called the Mad River!  And that is only one of the Tribs, you also have the rest of the North Branch and the East Branch, and maybe it is mellow most years, if one goes up, and then the melt gets a little more intense and the north tribs start to run off, but if it all comes at once and with rain, you get this kind of flow.  So don't bash on the operator, as 2B says, you can't do anything right in that business, and I know these guys want to manage flow better because this kind of high water going over and through a dam adds a lot of wear and tear they would like to avoid.  As to another gage, it would make you less uncertain about exactly how much water you have, but it might not give you a whole lot better predictive capability, and last itime I priced one, the building and equipment and well were around 20K, plus either a satellitte modem or phone line so we can all figure out if we want go fishing or not on the real time webpage, and then its around 10K a year to do the gaging and O+M.  Does Altmar have that kind of extra cake lying around?  As to fishing, my map shows a whole bunch of blue lines north and south of the Salmon, I'm sure with a little hoofing I could find a fish or two up there!
 
L13 
 
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/ny/nwis/dvstat/?referred_module=sw&site_no=04250200&por_04250200_2=1050734,00060,2,1992-11-05,2012-09-30&format=html_table&stat_cds=max_va&date_format=YYYY-MM-DD&rdb_compression=file&submitted_form=parameter_selection_list

Dime,  DEC knows that steelhead reproduce successfully in virtually all NYS tributaries.  What they are interested in is recruitment, how many make it into the catchable population.  While the water temps in the Salmon are probably adequate for a lot to survive, they have a ton of competition from the kings that emerge from the gravel before them, and there fore are larger and have an edge.  With the Kings, while DEC estimates nearly 70% of the fish returning to the SR are wild, they say no more than 5-20% in the rest of the tribs.  So most of the steel hatched in a place like Sandy won't make it and probably none from a place like Maxwell or the Genny.  They are on the list for a fin clip study, but when Kings are done, and I think this is the last year, cohos are next, so it will be a while before we got the skinny on the chrome.
 
L13  

Bob, by no means am i concerned with the fall. Im with ya on the capacity thing. My concern mostly is the spawn, river errosion, property damage and most of all safety. Luckily the water was already up to 2100 at first light and most got deterred from fishing. With the rain thing, yes it is a trickle down amd the tug did get hit pretty hard with rain.. north gauge spiked from it and believe it or not the wall in town this morning was wet about a foot and a half up so the mid/lower river spiked from it as well... hey, check your email... i scent you a bunch of pics from today. Shanes place was surrounded with water but it had just receded from coming over the road. The road was closed at one point. Hopefully theres not another surge coming down the hill from yesterdays/last nights rain... i may try pulling rapalas tomorrow along some banks if i get a chance. Even with the high water fish are noticibly present... a few guys were netting fish below the altmar parking lot which did have a current going through it...

Going to Altmar to check it out.  It looks as if it crested, but wanna go up and see what 6k or looks like in the LFZ and what 7k looks like in town
 

 I think it was a bit higher on the short bridge, but we all know how things seemed bigger and badder as when we were little.   IIRC it was in  around Christmas or early January and the ground was covered with alot of snow and it rained and rained    my dad  worked for Nimo and  their building was down right before  the ball park on the left,   that was under.  They lost a big  metal dumpster about 2 to 3 times the size of a regular dumpster filled with old transformers  never to be seen again.  I was talking to him  tonight and  he swears  he parked his car on the short on the bridge and to collaborate  I seem to remember going up with my mom with my uncle to move it  because water was running over the bridge.   We had to go down to port ontario and come up that way because she would not or maybe could not go over the tall bridge.    I seem to remember  the bowling alley was flooded and it was part way up the hill towards Dunkin.   We were out of power for well over a week and had to cook on the woodstove at home.   I was thinking I was 10 or 11 at the time so it would be 80 or 81, but that part I am not to sure about.   I took some pics too, but it was after the crest.   I will post them up.

Bob, thanks for posting the pics... you better watch out because you might become my picture poster

Notice the watwr marks on the town wall... that pic was taken before the actual crest on the pineville gauge... that down pour last night really pounded the middle section as you can see by thr waterline on the wall... although the pineville gauge didnt brake 8k, it was probably 10k downtown for sure... definitely a river changing event... watched the river til sundown. Still flowing very strong

I was there during it Clint.
Don't know if I saw the crest but very close if not.
My memory is that it licked the bottom of the short bridgeand curling back on itself but a couple feet from flowing over the span.
It was a long time ago though.
I didn't drive over it since I looked at it from the old Silver Star grocery store parking lot.

Looking at the UGS page It was 12/29/84  which fits into my time frame.   Looks like max discharge was 24,800 on that day, higher than the 17000 from 10/1/10.
 
  So add everything in the river yesterday to the 10/1/10 storm  to get to the flow in 84.    Lucky someone did not get killed that day. 

Not a hassle just tedious having to move them 1 at a time to resize and then post.
I can always find time if you want to send them along.
Thanks for letting us see what it really looked like rather than our minds eye.

Clint the river can be worth another shot. Its all time and place now. Have fun with whatever you do. Bass should be showing up soon in altmar. All lower reaches of all tribs should be showing some bass... may 15th is start of night fishing, bring on the summer!!!

Nights have been chilly and dropping off in to the low fifties shortly after darkness... low forties have been common. A little bit of wet weather followed by some possible frost warnings by sunday is whats in store... but...... april did not bring any showers. The land and ground is dry. Despite our fluke floood a few weeks back, rain could really help. As much as the warm dry weather is nice, as gerry said, summer time conditions in may isnt good. I went up north country to fish for what was available this past weekend. No smallies were found, buts tons of sunnies and the kids had a blast. The water was like bath water though. 3 weeks ago it was probably atleast 30-40 degrees colder. Pafisher, an early season rain dance wouldnt hurt a thing ya know...lol....

Don't know about the SR but the mini drought around here ended last night.
Steady to hard rain most of the night.

We got a good chunk of rain wednesday, but not much today.   Tstorms tomorrow we will see