# US Flood Sentinel is your river monitor. AI Agent Connect > US Flood Sentinel connects your AI client to USGS Water Data and the National Weather Service. It lets your agent track specific river gage heights, monitor multi-day trends, and watch for active flood warnings across the country. Instead of reading news headlines, you get raw gage data and delta-based updates that show exactly what changed since your last check. ## Overview - **Category:** government-public-data - **Price:** Free - **Endpoint:** https://edge.vinkius.com/vk_preview_2IaLzvzrCNyUyYqfkh0gZbyhuZib3BJLwPDDXiwY/ai-agent-connect - **Tags:** flood, usgs, nws, river, gage, water, alert, sentinel, public-safety ## Description You don't need to guess if a river is rising or if a flood warning is actually relevant to your location. This MCP pulls live data from the USGS and the National Weather Service to give your agent a direct line to hydrological reality. You can pinpoint specific gages in any US state, check if a water level is approaching a flood stage, or pull a multi-day trend to see if a river is gaining or losing volume. For broader monitoring, your agent can sweep the entire country for active NWS flood watches or warnings. Because the NWS feed updates constantly, you can use delta-based checks to have your agent report only the new alerts that have been issued since your last request. It is a stateless, keyless way to turn your AI client into a dedicated flood watchdog. ## Tools ### current_gage This tool provides the latest gage height for a specific USGS site. It compares the current level against the recorded flood stage and gives a status verdict. ### gage_trend This tool calculates multi-day trends for a USGS gage. It provides daily min, max, and mean values along with the direction of the water level and how many days the river has exceeded flood stage. ### find_gages Use this to locate stream gages within a specific US state or near a certain river or town. It returns gage IDs, site numbers, and drainage area details. ### flood_alerts This tool pulls all active NWS flood alerts across the United States. You can also filter the results to watch for one specific event type. ### flood_delta This tool identifies new or updated NWS flood alerts issued since a specific timestamp. It separates these into alerts that are still active and those that have since expired. ### flood_watch This tool monitors a single type of NWS flood event across the country. It returns a verdict on whether that specific event type is currently active. ## Prompt Examples **Prompt:** ``` Is anything flooding in the US right now? ``` **Response:** ``` The agent checks all active NWS flood event types and reports any current warnings or watches found nationwide. ``` **Prompt:** ``` How close is the Colorado River near Yuma to flood stage? ``` **Response:** ``` The agent finds the relevant USGS gages for the area, checks the current height against the flood stage, and reports the margin. ``` **Prompt:** ``` My gage was 18 ft yesterday at 06:00 UTC. What has changed? ``` **Response:** ``` The agent pulls the gage trend for the recent period and uses the timestamp to find any new NWS alerts issued since that time. ``` ## Capabilities ### Gage Monitoring Your agent checks real-time water levels against official flood thresholds. ### Trend Analysis Your agent calculates whether a river is rising or falling over several days. ### National Alert Sweeps Your agent scans all NWS flood warnings and watches across the country. ### Delta Reporting Your agent identifies only the new flood alerts issued since the last check. ### Location Discovery Your agent finds specific USGS stream gages by state, river name, or town. ## Use Cases ### Personal Flood Watchdog An agent checks a specific gage every hour and notifies you only when the water reaches a certain threshold. ### Automated Alert Filtering A script monitors for specific NWS event types like FloodWarnings to trigger emergency protocols. ### River Trend Tracking An agent analyzes multi-day gage data to determine if a river is trending toward a flood stage. ### Regional Safety Sweeps An agent performs a nationwide sweep of all active flood watches to provide a daily summary. ## Benefits - Direct access to USGS and NWS data without managing API keys. - Delta-based updates prevent your agent from re-reading the same alerts repeatedly. - Stateless design means your agent handles the context and timestamps. - Provides specific water level numbers rather than just general warnings. ## How It Works Connecting to this data is direct and requires no complex setup. 1. Connect your MCP-compatible client to Vinkius. 2. Ask your agent to find specific gages or check for national alerts. 3. The agent calls the necessary tools to pull data from USGS or NWS. 4. Your agent processes the gage heights, trends, or alert deltas. 5. The agent delivers the specific water levels or new alerts to you. ## Frequently Asked Questions **Do I need an API key to use this?** No. Both the USGS and NWS data sources are public, so this MCP is keyless and stateless. **How can I avoid getting the same flood alerts every time I ask?** You can use the flood_delta tool. By passing the timestamp of your last check, your agent will only receive alerts issued since that time. **Can I monitor a specific river?** Yes. You can use find_gages to locate the specific gage for a river or town and then check its current status. **What happens if a gage is not reporting data?** The current_gage tool will report a status of no_data or stale_data rather than an error, letting your agent know the feed is quiet. **Which AI clients can use this MCP?** Any MCP-compatible client like Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, or VS Code can use this tool once connected via Vinkius. **Do I need credentials?** No. Both the USGS Water Data OGC API and the NWS alerts API are public with no key, no account. Anonymous NWS access is rate-limited to roughly 30 requests per minute, so the all-events sweep is kept to a handful of calls. **How does the "since" delta detection work?** The server is stateless. Any tool that returns an as_of or sent timestamp is your baseline: keep it in the agent's context, and on the next check pass it as since. flood_delta then returns only the alerts issued after that moment, split into still-active and since-expired — the agent reports the change, not the whole picture again. **Which rivers and gages are covered?** Every US stream gage that publishes public USGS data — find_gages lists them per state, biggest drainage area first, so the rivers that actually flood (Colorado, Sacramento, Columbia, Missouri, ...) come on top. One honest caveat: USGS daily summaries and continuous feeds are sparse per gage; a gage without recent data answers "no data" with a note instead of failing. **Why are flood alerts nationwide instead of by state?** The NWS API's 2026 revision dropped the state query parameter, so alert sweeps run by event type across the whole country. State-level precision lives in the USGS side of the sentinel: find_gages filters gages by state (and drainage area), so "is my county's river rising?" is answered by the gage, while "is anything flooding in the US?" is answered by the alerts.