Stream temperatures this week are generally warming up, except for patches on the East Coast, with generally high temperatures in the west and low temperatures in the east. I am delighted to announce that the science behind these forecasts is now published in the Journal of Hydrology. TempEst-NEXT is the first subcontinental-scale water temperature forecasting model for unmonitored watersheds, enabling real-time, high-resolution (daily/1-km) forecasting at unprecedented scale. It comes with automatic data retrieval and we provide a pre-trained model, so you can go from coordinates to forecast in a couple of lines of code.

Open-access paper (with Claudia Corona and Terri Hogue): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2026.135620

Model documentation (with links to source code and Python package): https://rivertempest.org/next/readme.html

Open data: https://www.hydroshare.org/resource/abdb4e52147e408f9e328a5ba2a155f8/

TempEst-NEXT builds on our earlier work with stream temperature seasonality (https://doi.org/10.1111/1752-1688.13228) and the SCHEMA modeling framework (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2025.133321).

This research is funded by the NOAA Cooperative Institute for Research to Operations in Hydrology. These data and related items of information have not been formally disseminated by NOAA, and do not represent any agency determination, view, or policy.

#hydrology #streamtemperature

In the process of developing a new stream temperature model, I noticed some odd seasonal error spikes in mountainous watersheds. It turns out that stream temperature seasonality has some distinct patterns that aren't captured in the typical annual formulation (a sinusoid with a period of one year): in most streams, the spring is colder, summer warmer, autumn colder, and winter warmer than you'd expect from a sine curve.

#NewPaperAlert #Hydrology #StreamTemperature

#NewPaperAlert

I'm happy to share that our paper introducing "A machine learning model for estimating the temperature of small rivers using satellite-based spatial data" is out in Remote Sensing of Environment. We developed the model to quickly estimate monthly mean stream temperatures for ungauged basins throughout the contiguous US using minimal data, built for fast, large-scale analyses.

Open-access paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2024.114271

#hydrology #streamtemperature #RemoteSensing

#Introduction

Hello world,
I'm a hydrologist working on large-domain (contiguous US) stream temperature modeling and forecasting with an emphasis on ungauged watersheds, often using remote sensing data products. I also dabble in hydraulic modeling and maintain several open-source packages for stream temperature analysis/modeling and HEC-RAS automation.

#hydrology #streamtemperature #remotesensing