In October 2012 we deployed 2 HOBO U26-001 dissolved oxygen loggers in Frankford Creek, in Philadelphia, PA.  The loggers collected data every 15 minutes, which is shown in animated format below:


There were several surprising results from this deployment including:

  • DO levels that approached 0 at certain times; and
  • DO was primarily driven by tidal elevation, with very little diel influence.


The HOBOs allow a 2 point calibration including a 0% saturation calibration using sodium sulfite solution, so we are confident of our results at the low end.

One interesting side note is that we had to perform an emergency retrieval of the meters before Hurricane Sandy arrived.  Here is a time lapse video of that.  I'm the guy driving the boat.


And of course, the VBA enabled spreadsheet used to generate the top video can be downloaded here.
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Labels: animated animation Delaware River estuary graph tidal tide water quality
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Modern unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), better known to the rest of us as drones or quadcopters, can be programmed to collect photos from specific coordinates, altitude, orientation, and gimbal angle, thus allowing photos on different days from the same perspective.  The two photos above were taken less than 24-hours apart during normal and flood conditions on the Neshaminy Creek in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.  In addition to reproducible perspective, drones can reach areas inaccessible during bad conditions.  On day one, I was able to park in the lot shown in the top photo.  On day two, I had to park several hundred feet away, but was still able to navigate the drone to the same location.

Here's an animated plot of the % of dissolved oxygen saturation in the Delaware Estuary throughout 2022.  All data is from USGS processed to compute the % of saturation and make the animation.

Another seiche occurred on Lake Erie December 23-25, 2022.  Here is an animated plot using the NOAA PORTS data.

Strong winds caused substantial water surface elevation differences in Lake Erie around November 15, 2020.  Here's an animated plot of elevations measured by NOAA.
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Here's a time lapse I made of the Delaware River near Philadelphia.  At this location the Delaware is tidal and the water surface elevation changes throughout the day.  Lots of legacy submerged man-made structure here revealed at low tide.  The silver cylinder near the middle is a staff gauge with 1-foot markings for reference.

Animated plot of #Schuylkill River flooding following Tropical Storm #Isaias Data from USGS gages.

Revisiting the river flow profile plot from an earlier post, the video below loops each day's flow profile for the Delaware River in 2019.  Data is from USGS gages processed using R and Windows Live Movie Maker.

Our second fish tank experiment with the Flir One was to insert a foam rubber divider and fill each half of the tank with hot and cold water.  We removed the divider, and watched with the Flir as the hot water moved to the left across the top and the denser cold water moved to the right across the bottom.
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My son and I played around with an old fish tank, some tap water, and a Flir One thermal imaging attachment for a smart phone.  Here is part one.
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My prior post on animated flow in the Delaware River contained the last work I performed on my previous lap top just before it gave up the ghost.  When a colleague asked me to share it, I was distressed to realize that the script was lost.  I decided to recreate the script from scratch and to fix one the limitations of the older version by making it easily transportable to other river systems.  Specifically, all the USGS gage numbers, drainage areas, and river miles are contained in a .csv file.
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