Help Page for Current Data

Station Listing

Current (water velocity) stations that have been analyzed and released for raw data dissemination are displayed. The list of available stations is expanded continuously as more data sets are processed. Users may enter keywords to search for particular stations over all fields (station ID, station name, project, and year) or over a particular field. Users can also sort the result list by clicking on the relevant column header. See Figure 1.

In addition, users can view a printable version of the entire station listing with additional latitude/longitude information. This listing, containing location information, is also available in other formats, including comma-delimited format for export to Excel (Export to Excel link), and in KML format for display in Google Earth. Note that the CSV file strips any commas in the station name or project so that it can be opened correctly in Excel.

Figure 1: Sample search capability to find a specific station by name.

Station Information

Relevant metadata for a station, such as deployment coordinates, deployment dates in UTC (Greenwich) and approximate station depth are given. Currents data is collected at various locations with respect to the instrument.

For upward (bottom-mounted) and downward looking (buoy-mounted) instruments, data is available at various depths below the approximate station depth listed. For side looking instruments (shore-mounted), data is available at a fixed depth, but at several horizontal distances from the instrument. Users may select data for an available depth or distance at the bottom of the station information page. See Figure 2.

Figure 2: Sample list of depths for which data is available.

Station Data Retrieval/Plotting

Speed and direction data can be retrieved and plotted automatically for a selected station at a specific depth by clicking on the "View Plot/Data button. A maximum of 31 days of data can be retrieved at one time.

Users may specify a depth of interest from the "Approximate Depth" or "Distance from Sensor" drop-down box. Begin and end retrieval dates can be selected from the "Begin Date" and "End Date" drop down boxes. The retrieval dates must fall within the deployment/recovery date range. The begin retrieval time is always 00:00:00 and the retrieval end time 23:59:59.

One can choose speed values returned in cm/sec or knots (see "Data Units"). While the original data is collected in UTC (Greenwich) time, the data can be returned in LST (Local Standard) and Local (LST/LDT), which respects daylight savings time (if applicable). See Figure 3.

Figure 3: Available data retrieval/plotting capabilities.

Browsing Data Sets: Users may also browse through data sets via previous/next links above the plot. The links automatically allow one to move ahead or back by the same number of days in the data set as previously requested. See Figure 4. Users may only request data within the deployment dates. If the previously requested data set is already at either the beginning (deployment start) or at the end (deployment end), then no link is available.

Figure 4: Data browsing capabilities with previous/next links.

Downloading and Printing Data/Plots: Plots and data sets may be downloaded by selecting the appropriate link below the plot: "Save Plot" for plots, TXT to save as a text file as shown on the webpage, and CSV to save as a comma-delimited (CSV) file. TXT files may have blank lines indicating data gaps, whereas the CSV file omits any blank lines. The plot and data may also be viewed in a format suitable for printing by selecting the "Printable Plot" or "Printable Data Listing" links.

Figure 5: Sample links to download or view printable plots and data sets.