Spotlight on a Gage: Lake Champlain, Burlington, Vermont
While most USGS surface water monitoring stations are situated alongside riverbanks, some are located on the shores of much larger water bodies, like lakes, reservoirs, and bays.
The USGS New England Water Science Center runs a monitoring station on Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont, right outside the ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain, a science and nature museum. This USGS monitoring station is operated in cooperation with the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation and the USGS Groundwater and Streamflow Information Program. The station measures the lake’s water levels, water temperature, and specific conductance every 15 minutes, sending data information to the publicly-accessible National Water Dashboard each hour.
Of all the USGS monitoring stations in New England, the Lake Champlain station data is the most viewed by the public!
Located on the waterfront walk, the monitoring station has a clear door so passers-by can view the monitoring equipment to see how a lake gage operates. Next to the gage is an interpretive sign that explains how the gage works, how the data is used, and a graph of the lake’s average water levels against which the public can compare current data.
While its location in a high-traffic area on the waterfront is one reason people visit the gage data, the water level information is also often looked at by recreational boaters. Additionally, many different types of scientific researchers and students view the gage website because daily, monthly, and annual data at this monitoring station go back to May 1, 1907! Water temperature and specific conductance information has been collected at the gage since 2014.
This lake gage is one of four USGS monitoring stations on the 120-mile-long lake, with additional stations located at Whitehall, Port Henry, and Rouses Point, New York. Also, streamflow levels at over 40 streamgages within the Lake Champlain watershed help water resource managers better understand future lake levels and the potential for flooding.
Check out all of the data at USGS lake gage 04294500 – Lake Champlain at Burlington, Vermont, here!
