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 Topic:  Inflow to Clair Engle less than Trinity at Coffee Creek gauge 

Forums -> Flows -> Inflow to Clair Engle less than Trinity at Coffee Creek gauge Page 1 of 1
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NSDan
Member
Posted: Jan 31, 2016Post Subject: Inflow to Clair Engle less than Trinity at Coffee Creek gauge
I'm trying to understand how the inflow to the reservoir can be reporting at less than the Trinity River Gauge above the reservoir. Is is because they are pushing that much water over the hill to Whiskeytown?
chris
Site Admin
Posted: Jan 31, 2016
NSDan wrote:
I'm trying to understand how the inflow to the reservoir can be reporting at less than the Trinity River Gauge above the reservoir. Is is because they are pushing that much water over the hill to Whiskeytown?


Excellent question! Both readings are taken from agency flow sites.
Inflow to Clair Engle is taken from http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/queryDaily?s=LEW
The flow above Coffee Creek is taken from http://waterdata.usgs.gov/ca/nwis/uv/?PARAmeter_cd=00065,00060&site_no=11523200
The calculations for inflow to Clair Engle look good to me.

Normally I'd point out that comparing a realtime flow site with a daily average on a reservoir is like the proverbial comparing apples to oranges. This doesn't appear to be the case here, though, since the Coffee Creek flow has been consistently higher than the Clair Engle inflow ever since Jan 17. So it's a puzzle.

Possible reasons for the discrepancy include that the Claire Engle inflow calculation isn't taking something into account, as you suggest, and that the Coffee Creek gauge went out of calibration. I'm sending an email to the Powers That Be asking for elucidation.
chris
Site Admin
Posted: Feb 1, 2016
The response from USBR indicates that CDEC's LEW is the incorrect gauge for reporting inflow to Clair Engle. Seems I should be using CLE. Also, wikipedia tells me that it's no longer called Clair Engle, it's back to being called Trinity Lake.

Long story short: my mistake, and I'll fix as soon as I can, probably Wednesday. Will update everything in sight (graphs included) then.
chris
Site Admin
Posted: Feb 3, 2016
The new site, called 'Trinity - Inflow Trinity Lake', is now being reported on the Daily page. It reports inflow from CDEC's CLE site.

The old site (Trinity - Inflow Clair Engle Lake) has been discontinued.
NSDan
Member
Posted: Feb 5, 2016Post Subject: Thanks Chris
Thanks for sorting that out Chris, you are the man!
Forums -> Flows -> Inflow to Clair Engle less than Trinity at Coffee Creek gauge Page 1 of 1