Turbidity?

[Barracuda]

Does anyone follow the turbidity readings for the Potomac at Little Falls? I was hoping they'd be a useful gauge as to whether the river is too muddy to bother fishing or not. Looking at the data as I write this shows the data below (let me know if the screenshot doesn't show up). You would think it's not too bad -- I know I was on the river last Friday (Jun 5) and it was stained, but fishable, and the turbidity reading now is in the same ballpark. But I just drove down to Locks 8 and 10 and it's just plain muddy.

I would appreciate it if anyone can help me understand just what the turbiditly reading is telling us, and why it doesn't seem to equate with how muddy the river looks to the naked eye.

Barracuda

[Rob]

Search the archives from a few years ago. There was a discussion about lasers shooting out and being bounced back...

As for the river clearing, out very accurate neighborhood meteorologist sent this out today: 

 “ The pattern indicates a possible multi day rain event with possibly heavy rain starting late in the weekend, or early next week.I know I send a similar message a few weeks ago but the rain ended up just southwest of here. Although the exact placement of where the heavy rain cannot be determined at this time. There is an increasing likelihood  of several inches of rain over several days here.”

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 11, 2020, at 3:24 PM, Barracuda <omar...@gmail.com> wrote:



Does anyone follow the turbidity readings for the Potomac at Little Falls? I was hoping they'd be a useful gauge as to whether the river is too muddy to bother fishing or not. Looking at the data as I write this shows the data below (let me know if the screenshot doesn't show up). You would think it's not too bad -- I know I was on the river last Friday (Jun 5) and it was stained, but fishable, and the turbidity reading now is in the same ballpark. But I just drove down to Locks 8 and 10 and it's just plain muddy.

I would appreciate it if anyone can help me understand just what the turbiditly reading is telling us, and why it doesn't seem to equate with how muddy the river looks to the naked eye.

Barracuda

<Auto Generated Inline Image 1>

--
http://www.tpfr.org
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tidal-potomac-fly-...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tidal-potomac-fly-rodders/41a04dff-da8e-400c-abcd-aa0e349a0c1do%40googlegroups.com.

<Auto Generated Inline Image 1>

[Andrew Sarcinello]

Interesting, like you, I would have thought values in the 10-15 range are quite fishable based on past outings.

Only thing I can think of is we've been having some scattered storms that have dumped rain on some areas and totally missed other areas. In theory that could lead to pulses of muddy water from certain tributaries which move through the system before quickly reverting back to clear-ish water. But lock 8 and 10 are really close to Little Falls, so this seems unlikely. Hmmm.