New to kayaking, Waco area
New to kayaking, Waco area
Just curious if there is any type of resource to check river conditions that you guys use? I've been looking at the Brazos River Authority streamflow map as I'd like to get out on the Brazos close to downtown Waco but am having a hard time deciphering the details on the map and trying to determine some sort of reference point for the cfs readings. For instance, today I see a reading of 3820 cfs for the area closest to where I would like to put in, but not sure how swift that is or what to compare it to. There's also a streamflow number in parenthesis of 4, but not sure what to make of it. Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks.
Re: New to kayaking, Waco area
Not sure if anyone has helped with this in a PM, but I'll chime in now.robc314 wrote:Just curious if there is any type of resource to check river conditions that you guys use? I've been looking at the Brazos River Authority streamflow map as I'd like to get out on the Brazos close to downtown Waco but am having a hard time deciphering the details on the map and trying to determine some sort of reference point for the cfs readings. For instance, today I see a reading of 3820 cfs for the area closest to where I would like to put in, but not sure how swift that is or what to compare it to. There's also a streamflow number in parenthesis of 4, but not sure what to make of it. Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks.
The BRA's streamflow is good if you just fish the Brazos River and its tributaries. If you're going to venture out the the USGS Real-Time Water Data for Texas will cover the rest of the state. BRA and USGS use the same gauges, though it looks like the BRA website updates a little more frequently.
As far as what 3,820 CFS means for paddle-ability, I'm not sure as I've never been on that stretch of the Brazos River where the gauge is located near Loop 6. However, if you're looking at Google Maps the default aerial imagery is from 12/7/2015 and the river was flowing around 27,000 CFS. If you use Google Earth the default aerial imagery is from 1/23/2018 and the river was flowing around 60-75 CFS. OK, so that's a wide swing. On the USGS webpage for that river gauge it lists 643 CFS as the median CFS for August 8th.
My guess by looking at other gauges for their rivers and lakes on BRA's website is that "(4)" means streamflow (CFS) is sensor input #4. Looks like sensors 1-3 are for lakes (Reservoir Elevation, Storage Capacity, and Reservoir Drawdown, respectively), sensor 4 is for river flows, and sensor 5 is for rain fall.
