In May, 2009, DMI installed a river monitoring system at our Wellesley, MA office.  This system collects and displays a live data feed from the Cordingly Dam on the Charles River, which is literally in our backyard. Please see our Partners Page for details on how this system works.

Monitored water parameters include gauge height, water temperature and dissolved oxygen level.  Using data collected by the USGS, and augmented by the CRWA, we are able to convert the gauge height data into an approximate river discharge rate (flow).  We also collect related data that includes air temperature and humidity as well as rainfall.

For each parameter, the user can view a graph of the past 24 hours, the past week, or the past month.  Click on any of the navigation buttons at the top of the Live River Data page to change the time period, and to show or hide data.  Please note:  The display of live river data is optimized for the Firefox browser, and there are known issues with older versions of Internet Explorer.  Please update your browser if you are experiencing problems displaying the data.

To the right of each graph, a table provides a summary of the most recent period, the prior period, and the change between the two periods.  Use these tables to see, for example, how much warmer the average river temperature is this week compared to last week.  Mousing over any of the high or low values in the table will tell you when the maximum or minimum value occurred.

In the Fun Facts section of the live data feed, we convert the river discharge into our own made up unit, the "Pru".  One Pru is the volume represented by the Prudential Tower in Boston, which we have estimated at 17.5 million cubic feet.

Although there is no longer anything being powered by the Cordingly Dam, we convert the river discharge into theoretical power and energy values using an estimated dam height of 20 feet.