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Use of the transfer relation should be limited to sites that differ in area by no more than 50 percent from the area of the gaged site. If other characteristics of the ungaged site are significantly different from the gaged site, the T-year flood should be multiplied by the ratio of the basin charac- teristics of ungaged and gaged sites raised to the regional exponent of that characteristic for the T-year flood (see example 3). Where the period of record is shorter than 20 years, flood-frequency estimates 'should be based on transfer of information from gaged sites and results from the regional estimating equations. Example 2 Estimate the 50-year flood on the Sauk River at Cold Spring, an ungaged site. 1. Inspection of figure 2 and table 5 indicate the availability of gaging- station data for the Sauk River in close proximity to Cold Spring. The station is identified as Sauk River near St. Cloud, (station no. 05270500). Because the gaged site has 55 years of record, a simple transfer of peak flow will provide an accurate estimate for the ungaged site. 2. A contributing drainage area of 832 mi 2 at Cold Spring is obtained by planimetering topographic maps. 3. The re~uction in drainage area at Cold Spring is only 10 percent from the 925 mi listed in table 5 for the St. Cloud gaging station. Therefore, a transfer of flood characteristics by drainage area ratio is appropriate. Visual inspection of the topographic maps indicates that the other signif- icant basin characteristics are similar to the gaged site. Area only will be used to determine the 50-year-peak flood at Cold Spring. 4. Region B exponent for drainage area for the 50-year flood is 0.827. 5. From table 4, Q50,g - 6,300 ft3/s. 6. By substitution into the transfer equation: Q50 u , Q (A /A )(0.827) 50, g''U g 6,300(832/925)0.827 Q50,u Q50 u , 6,300xO.916 5,770 ft3/s (153 m3/s) Q50 u , 14