Flowing Waters Information System Temperature Data

This dataset includes monitored air and water temperature across Ontario since 1990. The data were collected by multiple organizations for a variety of purposes (collection organization names are listed in the Result Comment of this dataset).

This dataset includes only a portion of a larger dataset available on FWIS (https://www.comap.ca/fwis. ), which includes maximum air temperature and predicted maximum water temperature and a standardized water temperature, for records that meet the criteria for applying the algrorithms. The FWIS dataset represents a summary of the two module types from within OSAP that provide varying methods of measuring stream and air temperature. Those being the rapid and standard methods. To fully apply the standard method water temperature is recorded between 3:45 and 5:00 when maximum air temperature would be greater or equal to 24 C. Such measures ensure that the stream is approaching maximum temperature for that day and enables summer maximum or standardized temperature to be calculated for the site. Air temperature at the site is also often recorded when the water temperature is recorded on site. It is used as a backup for analysis, but is not necessary. If either the maximum air temperature is lower than this value or the temperature is recorded outside this window, it is considered a rapid assessment value. Users can conclude that the stream gets to a maximum of at least the value recorded but is likely to exceed this value at some point during the summer. Note that many observations have been extracted from digital temperature recorders (the diagnostic method), with summer maximum temperatures extracted along with air temperature data from other sources. These are generally identified as those records with more than one decimal point.

Guidance for the FWIS dataset methods are from:
Stanfield, L. W. (Ed.). 2010. Stream assessment protocol for southern Ontario. Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, internal publication.