January 2018

January 20 – today is beautiful, should reach the upper 60s and changing from cloudy to mostly sunny as we monitored. This past week or 2 we’ve had very weird weather. It’s been below freezing for several days and snowed twice – including a couple of inches, enough to make a small snowman and snow angels for those who were so inclined (the first snow in about 8 years). The low temp hit 19 degrees a few days ago! Needless to say, a number of plants didn’t survive.

Didn’t make it to the monitoring site during the freeze, but now the stream is has a good flow. There is very little if any surface algae, though there are a fair number of submerged algae strands. The biggest difference I noted was the lack of leaves. Most of the branches are bare, so it’s easy to see the stream and the inflowing culvert. The water in the culvert still has to flow over a natural dam of sticks and leaves, so the surface of the backed up pool is rather scummy. As it flows through the cracks it appears clear.

The snow and light rain provided enough water that all 4 bridge columns are in the water, and there is a good flow on the downstream bridge side around the gravel bar. I heard some birdsong upstream of the sample site, near the visible “sometime island” rocks in the middle of the stream but didn’t see any birds, including no pigeons (a possible e-coli source).

Although the flow was good, the volume was only enough that the middle of the waterfall had water flowing over it, with a pleasant gurgling.

There’s been enough rain that under the bridge there are some wet areas, possibly by some water seeping out of the ground.

Observations:

air temp 15.5 C (60 F)
water temp 12 C (54 F)
dissolved oxygen 8.9
specific conductance 520
pH 7.0
transparency > 1.2 meters
nitrates = .3
e-coli was barely present, about 66 colonies per 3 ML sample. Guess it didn’t like the freeze.

 

sample site and downstream from north bank

sample site and downstream from streamside

view of sample site downstream

sample site from north bank

stream under bridge to trail crossing from north bank

all bridge columns in water

closeup of trail crossing area

downstream view from under bridge

gravel bar and stream under bridge

under bridge wet area from seep

view of stream under bridge and downstream from above culvert

upstream view from under bridge

stream from above storm culvert

bare branches by storm culvert

stream between waterfall and bridge

waterfall area

closeup of waterfall

upstream of bridge with waterfall

stream above waterfall by inlet

stream above inlet south bank

stream above inlet

downstream view from above inlet

sometime island above inlet

dissolved oxygen 8.9