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Surface Water Data Portal

Storm archive

February 2017

25 hours and 45 minutes

That is how long the crest took to reach Coyote Creek above Hwy 237 at Milpitas from Coyote Creek near Gilroy, measured peak to peak on the discharge record. For anyone living at the bottom of the creek it is also how much warning the water itself gave.

Feb 2017 Coyote Creek flood (San Jose neighborhood evacuations). USGS instantaneous record, 2017-02-17 to 2017-02-25, 3 of 14 requested stations returning data. Retrieved July 28, 2026 at 5:32 PM PT.

Coyote Creek, Ridge to Bay

8 stations top to bottom, drawn on the 2 with a record in this window. Run the clock and the rise arrives at each in turn. Every column holds the last reading the gauge actually took rather than sliding between samples, so what moves on screen is the record itself.

  1. Coyote Creek near Gilroy

    USGS 11169800 · station 1 of 8 downstream · NOAA NRGC1

    16.12 ft 8,550 cfs

    Peak, Feb 20, 10:30 PM PT

  2. Coyote Creek below Coyote Reservoir NR San Martin

    USGS 11169860 · station 2 of 8 downstream · NOAA RCCC1

    The station had not been instrumented yet. Its record begins 2017-11-28.

  3. COYOTE C BL LEROY ANDERSON DAM NR MADRONE CA

    USGS 11169970 · station 3 of 8 downstream

    The USGS site record carries no discharge or stage series for this station at all.

  4. Coyote Creek at Madrone

    USGS 11170000 · station 4 of 8 downstream · NOAA CYTC1

    The record breaks here. Readings run to 1987-09-29 and do not resume until 2022-02-01.

  5. COYOTE C BL COYOTE RANCH RD NR COYOTE CA

    USGS 11170450 · station 5 of 8 downstream

    The station had not been instrumented yet. Its record begins 2024-10-01.

  6. COYOTE C NR EDENVALE CA

    USGS 11171500 · station 6 of 8 downstream

    The record breaks here. Readings run to 1962-09-29 and do not resume until 2024-10-01.

  7. Coyote Creek above Hwy 237 at Milpitas

    USGS 11172175 · station 7 of 8 downstream · NOAA CMIC1

    17.77 ft 6,670 cfs

    Peak, Feb 22, 12:15 AM PT

    NOAA flood stages here: action at 14.5 ft, minor at 15.5 ft, moderate at 18 ft

  8. COYOTE C NR ALVISO CA

    USGS 372750122012701 · station 8 of 8 downstream · NOAA RYAC1

    The station had not been instrumented yet. Its record begins 2019-06-13.

February 17, 2017 at 12:00 AM PT

Jump to

With the script off this reads as a still frame at the peak of the storm. The peaks table below carries the same readings as text, which is the accessible equivalent of everything the clock shows.

Discharge at 2 stations on Coyote Creek between 2017-02-17 and 2017-02-25. The highest reading plotted is 8,550 cfs, at Coyote Creek near Gilroy.
  • Coyote Creek near Gilroy peak 8,550 cfs
  • Coyote Creek above Hwy 237 at Milpitas peak 6,670 cfs
Discharge in cubic feet per second, from the USGS instantaneous record. Every station shares one axis, so the fall from the top of the creek to the bottom is measured rather than drawn. Every reading in the window is plotted.
Where each station's highest reported reading falls inside this storm window. Position is timestamp, not estimated travel.
  1. Coyote Creek near Gilroy Feb 20, 10:30 PM PT
  2. Coyote Creek above Hwy 237 at Milpitas Feb 22, 12:15 AM PT

Coyote Creek, in Full

Peak flow and peak stage at each reporting station on Coyote Creek
StationPeak flowReachedPeak stageReached
Coyote Creek near Gilroy 8,550 cfs Feb 20, 10:30 PM PT 16.12 ft Feb 20, 10:30 PM PT
Coyote Creek above Hwy 237 at Milpitas 6,670 cfs Feb 22, 12:15 AM PT 17.77 ft Feb 22, 12:15 AM PT

Peak to Peak

Each interval below is the arrival of the highest reading at that station, measured from the highest reading at Coyote Creek near Gilroy, the furthest upstream station with a record here. An interval is quoted as a travel time only when the downstream peak follows the upstream one inside 48 hours. The rest are still published, with the reason, because an unexplained negative lag on a flood page reads as a broken site rather than as a second storm.

Interval from the upstream peak to each downstream peak on Coyote Creek
StationIntervalReading
Coyote Creek above Hwy 237 at Milpitas +25.75 h Quoted. The crest reached here 25 hours and 45 minutes after the peak upstream, measured on the discharge record.

What Is Missing, and Why

6 of the 8 stations on this reach have no reading in this window. Each carries the dates out of its own USGS site record underneath, so a reader can tell a hole in the federal network from a hole in this build without taking our word for it.

The station nearest the flooding is the sharpest case of all. Coyote Creek near Edenvale carries USGS discharge to 1962 and nothing again until 2024, so the federal instantaneous archive holds no reading at all for the week the creek broke its banks a mile away. NOAA runs a separate gauge at Edenvale with its own flood categories, minor flooding at 8 feet and moderate at 12.7 feet, and that gauge carries no USGS cross reference. The reading a resident in Rock Springs needed existed. It was in the other network, and nothing was joining the two.

What NOAA Says Happens at These Levels

The National Weather Service keeps a written impact library for the gauges it forecasts, naming the parks, streets and neighborhoods that go under at each stage. These are its words, unedited.

Coyote Creek at Madrone

NOAA gauge CYTC1

Major Flooding...to CA-237. Japantown, Hyde Park, and Northside San Jose are possibly flooded.

NOAA National Water Prediction Service, impact at 14.2 feet, gauge CYTC1

Major Flooding...Neigh NW of Watson Park may be flooded. Floodwaters converge to Commerial St Neigh around N 4th St and N 10th St to cause flooding N of I-880 in San Jose. Businesses N and S of Berryessa Rd and W of thee crk are inundated. South Bay and Golden Wheel Mobile home parks inundated; risk that floodwaters could overtop and flood homes to the W. Charcot Bridge overtopping on both R and L banks flowing away from the crk flooding an area b/e Coyote Cr and Guadalupe River, and b/e Montague Expy to...

NOAA National Water Prediction Service, impact at 14.1 feet, gauge CYTC1

Major Flooding: Disastrous flooding occurs along Coyote Crk downstream of Tully to the SF Bay. Rocksprings Neigh and adj horse ranch inundated. Apt buildings at int of Keyes St and S 12th St flooded. Happy Hollow Zoo and Kelley Park flooded. Spills from Selma Park flow N to flood large area E of the crk, continuing N to Upper Penitencia Crk, overflowing Hwy 101. W Bank outbreaks at Watson Park, N 20th St, Roosevelt St, N 19th St at its S end, N 18th St, E St. John St, E Santa Clara St and S 17th St...

NOAA National Water Prediction Service, impact at 14 feet, gauge CYTC1

Coyote Creek above Hwy 237 at Milpitas

NOAA gauge CMIC1

Moderate Flooding: Watson Park inundated. Banks are overtopped at Charcot Ave with flooding along Paragon Drive. Higher flows may result in overland flows northwest of Watson Park and northeast of Charcot Ave toward Montague Expressway.

NOAA National Water Prediction Service, impact at 18 feet, gauge CMIC1

Minor Flooding: Watson Park begins to flood.

NOAA National Water Prediction Service, impact at 15.5 feet, gauge CMIC1

Action Stage.

NOAA National Water Prediction Service, impact at 14.5 feet, gauge CMIC1

Guadalupe River, in Full

Peak flow and peak stage at each reporting station on Guadalupe River
StationPeak flowReachedPeak stageReached
Guadalupe River (CA) above Hwy 101 at San Jose 6,340 cfs Feb 21, 12:30 AM PT 15.38 ft Feb 21, 12:30 AM PT

What Is Missing, and Why

5 of the 6 stations on this reach have no reading in this window. Each carries the dates out of its own USGS site record underneath, so a reader can tell a hole in the federal network from a hole in this build without taking our word for it.

What NOAA Says Happens at These Levels

The National Weather Service keeps a written impact library for the gauges it forecasts, naming the parks, streets and neighborhoods that go under at each stage. These are its words, unedited.

Guadalupe River (CA) above Hwy 101 at San Jose

NOAA gauge GSJC1

Major Flooding: Levee overtopping, with failures likely along both sides of the river between US-101 and Trimble flowing in a northerly direction.

NOAA National Water Prediction Service, impact at 21 feet, gauge GSJC1

Moderate Flooding: Levee overtopping imminent. Highest risk areas are between US-101 and Trimble.

NOAA National Water Prediction Service, impact at 20 feet, gauge GSJC1

Minor Flooding: High flows with heavy debris might cause localized blockages to cause overtopping of levees.

NOAA National Water Prediction Service, impact at 19 feet, gauge GSJC1

The Reach Between Those Two Gauges

The coverage ledger above is a ledger of one federal archive. The creek through San Jose was not unwatched in 2017. NOAA runs 3 more gauges on Coyote Creek that publish flood categories or written impacts, and none of them carries a USGS station number, so no time series for them reaches the replay on this page. What they do carry is the National Weather Service's own account of what floods at each level, and at one of them the impact library still records where the water stood in February 2017.

NOAA gauges on Coyote Creek without a USGS station number
GaugeNOAA identifierPublished flood categories
Coyote Creek at Edenvale CYEC1 minor 8 ft, moderate 12.7 ft
Coyote Creek at E William Street CYYC1 action 25 ft, minor 28 ft, moderate 32.5 ft
Coyote Creek at Berryessa Rd. XCBC1 minor 11 ft, moderate 13.5 ft, major 15 ft

Coyote Creek at Berryessa Rd.

NOAA gauge XCBC1, no USGS station number

Major Flooding...Historical High Water - February 2017.

NOAA National Water Prediction Service, impact at 16.07 feet, gauge XCBC1

Major Flooding...Floodwaters converge to the Commercial St Neighborhood around N 4th St and N 10th St to cause flooding N of I-880 in San Jose. Businesses N and S of Berryessa Rd and W of the creek are inundated. The South Bay and Golden Wheel Mobile home parks are inundated; there is risk that floodwaters could overtop and flood homes to the west.

NOAA National Water Prediction Service, impact at 17 feet, gauge XCBC1

Coyote Creek at E William Street

NOAA gauge CYYC1, no USGS station number

Moderate Flooding: Selma Olinder Park inundated and overflows into Olinder Neighborhood. Minor flooding at Olinder School. William Street Park is inundated. Higher flows will result in significant flooding along William Street and Olinder Neighborhood.

NOAA National Water Prediction Service, impact at 32.5 feet, gauge CYYC1

Minor Flooding: Selma Olinder Park inundated. William Street Park begins to flood.

NOAA National Water Prediction Service, impact at 28 feet, gauge CYYC1

Reading a threshold in one network against a reading in another is exactly the kind of join a resident should never have to make, and it is the work this contract moves onto one surface.

What Happened on the Ground

Anderson Reservoir filled and spilled over its emergency spillway for about ten days, the worst spill since the dam was finished in 1950, and the water came down Coyote Creek into San Jose. About 14,000 residents were ordered out, some by boat. Damage estimates run between 73 and 100 million dollars depending on the source and the date of the estimate. Valley Water later settled with affected residents for 8.25 million dollars.

The warning is the part this portal is about. San Jose had no universal public alert system, despite recommendations dating back to the 1997 flood on this same creek. What warnings existed went out mainly on social media, into a neighborhood where many residents speak Spanish or Vietnamese at home. More than 14,000 people got no formal flood warning at all. One resident learned of it when firefighters shouted evacuation orders with the water already around her house. A neighbor who spent days trying to reach the city and the district about the rising creek was eventually transferred to the water utility, which logged his report as a pipe leak.

The instruments were reading the whole time. The gauge at the top of this page recorded its peak more than 25 hours before the gauge at the bottom recorded its own, and both readings went into the federal archive on the day they were taken. Nothing in that record had to be discovered afterward. It had to be delivered.

That delivery is what the alert surface on this site is for

Readings on this page are USGS. The evacuation, damage and settlement figures come from KQED's reconstruction of the warning failure, SPUR's 2018 review of the city's response, and the reported settlement record, and are given as ranges where those sources disagree.

Other Windows in the Archive

Coyote Creek as it reads today