Also from Sandy, here is an animated map that shows USGS gages responding to the streamflow as the the storm moved through the Delaware River Basin.  The VBA Excel code retrieves the data, processes it to compute discharge per drainage area (CFS/mi2), and formats for ARC-GIS.  In this case, the actual animation was developed in ARC GIS by my coworker.



Hurricane Sandy animated map dots

Just prior to Sandy we had completed the same analysis from Hurricane Irene in 2011.  Comparing these two animations shows the dramatic difference between the two events in terms of rainfall and terrestrial (stream-based) flooding.  During Sandy, the majority of the damage came from storm-surge driven coastal flooding.



Hurricane Irene animated map dots

I like this type of analysis for several reasons.  First, it shows which gages in a basin saw high flows; you can figure out where the storm had the greatest impact.  Second, it shows the when gages responded, so that you can see if flooding moved up-basin or down-basin, or east-to-west, or whether headwater streams flooded first.  Finally, the VBA code that pulls and processes the data is highly automated, so I can develop this analysis for future storms by changing the dates in the Excel spreadsheet and pushing a button.

The base data used by this program is from the US Geological Survey's (USGS) National Water Information System (NWIS), which you can access here.

Finally, you can download and play with the VBA enabled spreadsheet I used here.  As with all VBA projects, you must adjust your security settings to run the macros, and you should be pretty familiar with coding and running macros in Excel.


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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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I am an engineer working in water resources and the environmental field. On the side, I work with small businesses to help automate their data processing functions. I offer reasonable rates and am very efficient. Send me an e-mail at JYagecic@gmail.com
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