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Does the river seem a bit cooler this year? Well...

 
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bjamin



Joined: 19 Jul 2000
Posts: 57

PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 1:21 pm    Post subject: Does the river seem a bit cooler this year? Well... Reply with quote

I had some time on my hands and was looking at the official river temps for The Dalles on July 2 over the past years at DART river data

For 2012 it's 60.8 on 7/2 - the coldest in at least 15 years (as far back as this particular site goes). 2011 was a close 2nd at 61.0. The warmest year was 2004 when it was 66.8 already. There's been a distinct downward trend since then. Here's the raw numbers

Year, Temp (C), Temp (F)
2012, 16.02, 60.836
2011, 16.12, 61.016
2010, 16.86, 62.348
2009, 18.33, 64.994
2008, 17.37, 63.266
2007, 18.09, 64.562
2006, 18.68, 65.624
2005, 18.34, 65.012
2004, 19.34, 66.812
2003, 18.00, 64.400
2002, 16.98, 62.564
2001, 18.21, 64.778
2000, 18.61, 65.498
1999, 16.37, 61.466
1998, 17.83, 64.094
1997, 16.54, 61.772
1996, 16.93, 62.474
1995, 18.87, 65.966



chart_1.png
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Here's a graph of temps vs year
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chart_1.png


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WMP



Joined: 30 May 2000
Posts: 671

PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 1:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The great thing about the colder high water is that it's keeping the weeds away much longer....... can't complain about that! I remember how bad the weeds were back in 2004 at this time.
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bjamin



Joined: 19 Jul 2000
Posts: 57

PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 2:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

High water and flow might also help keep those pesky weeds away.

Another way of looking at this is what date does the river reach 64F. I used 64F because that's when **I** feel comfy in my "summer" suit (YMMV). Otherwise it's just an arbitrary number. The interesting thing is last year this didn't occur until 7/23 - the latest date I found by far. In 2010 the date was 7/09 and every other year it occurred on or before 7/04 and in 2004 at was 6/23 - an entire month earlier than last year. Since this year has been colder than last year so far river temp wise, it'll be interesting to see when this happens (my bet is sooner - things look to really be warming up after 7/4 as usual).

The data:

Year, Date
2011, 07/23
2010, 07/09
2009, 06/30
2008, 07/04
2007, 07/01
2006, 06/27
2005, 06/26
2004, 06/23



chart_1 (1).png
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Year vs date for 64F -ignore the numbers on right axis
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johnl



Joined: 05 Jun 1994
Posts: 1330
Location: Hood River OR

PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 7:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The water would seem a lot warmer if the AIR would just warm up! Brr.....
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U2U2U2



Joined: 06 Jul 2001
Posts: 5467
Location: Shipsterns Bluff, Tasmania. Colorado

PostPosted: Wed Jul 04, 2012 9:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

while sailing I never felt the water was cold, of course in a wetsuit.

I walked in to rinse a sail in my boardies and about went numb.

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gregnw44



Joined: 23 Jul 2008
Posts: 783
Location: Seattle, Wa

PostPosted: Wed Jul 04, 2012 2:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kinda guessing here, my recollection could be slightly off, but I'm close Smile

I think 2004 was the year we had VERY LITTLE snow in the WA Cascades and in British Columbia.
The years since then, have been good snow years.
AND... this past season, and last year, we had TONS of snowbase very late into the Spring.

This usually matches up with strong current and cold water temps, early in the summer Gorge sailing season.
Little snow to melt = warm water and slow current, early.
Lots of snow to melt = cold water and fast current, early.
Greg -
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bjamin



Joined: 19 Jul 2000
Posts: 57

PostPosted: Thu Jul 05, 2012 1:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm sure you're right - 2004 was a bad snow year and I remember 80 deg days in early April that year. And the past few years had lots of late low elevation snow. So it'll be interesting to see when the river temp passed 64 this year. It's still hovering around 15.88C (60.5F) at The Dalles but the flow has reduced from 390 to 325 past few days. With this heat wave coming up I'm guessing we hit 64 around 7/10 or about the same time as 2010.
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bjamin



Joined: 19 Jul 2000
Posts: 57

PostPosted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 2:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just to wrap this up, the water temp at The Dalles dam officially passed 64 today (7/12). This is the 2nd latest date (last year was the latest date 7/23 and 2010 was the previous record 7/10). So still a very late spring/summer overall. That said we just had an awesome week of weather/conditions (along with plenty of wind) and the river warmed up four degrees along the way. So it looks like we're back to a normal summer (finally). Which is nice!
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