View topic - NWT Water Levels 2010

DIAND has posted the spring 2010 data for its "Snow Surveys", which may give some insight on potential water levels this summer (although other factors are obviously involved as well).

http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ai/scr/nt/en ... ex-eng.asp

Things don't look too bad - normal in the Snare and Taltson watersheds, a little low in the Yellowknife, South Slave and Inuvik areas.

If you want to look at the spreadsheets, select the "csv" format - "tab delimited" hasn't been updated for a few years.

-jmc

Thank you very much ... very helpful.

I am curious if there is a linear relationship between snow depth and water depth (or is it a curve). A shallow depth melts much quicker, and once it is gone there's nothing left. Deeper snow is very insulating. Is temperature a factor too, allowing storage of water in peat and wetlands, rather than runoff over the ice.

I hear reports this is going to be a very low water year in many places (and am curious if this is fully captured by snow depth numbers). Maybe it is worth it to find/develop some gauge readings as well (I haven't looked for them on-line yet).

Thanks.
I failed to find a link to the Nunavut snow surveys. Can anyone provide?

_________________
Brian
http://www.lssd.ca/~bjohnston/FOV1-00033C7A/

 

I finally found the link to real-time hydrometric data for Canadian lakes and rivers:

http://www.wateroffice.ec.gc.ca/index_e.html

There are over 17000 data collection sites across the country. You can use the text search option for a specific station, or the google index tool for a province or territory. Here is the google map for NWT and Nunavut as an example. Unfortunately, some of the stations don't seem to be keeping accurate records and need maintenance. Maybe canoers can help out to document these stations and plan for future repairs if they pass by them on a trip?

I've been playing around with the Environment Canada (Water Office) hydrometric website. There are a lot of inconsistencies in data sets, but it can be pretty interesting and informative if you spend some time with it.

I've found that one of the best ways to use the service (for me) is to compare historical archives (graphically illustrated) with current real-time statics (if the station appears to be maintaining accurate records).

Here is an example: Station 10PA001 (Coppermine River Below Desteffany Lake). You can see that the historical archive compares minimum levels, maximum levels, and 2009 levels. The current chart indicates flow peaking on/around June 06 at "70 m3/s," which is about 30% less than 2009 levels, and is a good deal less than the historical maximum level. The spring freshet appears to be a few days later than average as well. This is also confirmed when I look at records for other stations.



One note: the water office website contains a pretty powerful caveat that these records are measured electronically from remote stations, and may not reflect actual conditions.