Speed of Creek Water

[Fixer2.0]

Hello intelligent community, I'm looking to work the following out...
Fast flowing creek water travels at 300,000gallons per min, how fast is the water travelling in miles per minute and hour?
Would love to know how you work it out. Huge thanks.

 

[HallsofIvy]

It's impossible to answer that without knowing the width and depth of the river which would give the "volume per mile". A very narrow, shallow, river would have to be moving very fast to have a flow of 300,000 gallons per minute. But a deep wide river could move very slowly and still have a flow of 300,000 gallons per minute.

 

[Fixer2.0]

Many thanks Hallsoflvy. It's a narrow creek. I'll try and get the width of it but not too sure of the depth, we'd have to estimate that... would that work for you? With thanks.

 

[Steven G]

You need to think about whether or not the depth of the creek will matter? If the creek is extremely deep, then how is the speed going to compare to the speed if the creek was shallow?

Dr Halls gave you great insight and you need to think about what he said.

 

[JayJay]

We really need to know the area of the cross section of the creek which may be calculated as width x depth if the cross section is near to rectangular. Are you using UK (Imperial) or US gallons?.

 

[HallsofIvy]

Many thanks Hallsoflvy. It's a narrow creek. I'll try and get the width of it but not too sure of the depth, we'd have to estimate that... would that work for you? With thanks.

An estimate of the depth will work for an estimate of the speed.