Hi, my name is Megan Poff and I'm the Data Chief
at the USGS in Nevada.
I started off my career with the USGS
as a hydrologic technician.
And when I took that job,
I didn't know what a hydrologic technician did.
So as I found out through the years
hydrologic technicians do a variety of work.
It's field work, it's office work and pretty much anything
you can think of in support of collecting USGS water data
is what our hydrologic technicians do.
So a few of my colleagues are going to introduce
what they are doing in the field.
Hey folks, my name is Adam Opryszek,
I'm with the United States Geological Survey
here in Washington State.
I'm on the beautiful Qualup River, measuring stream flow.
I'm using an acoustic Doppler current profiler today.
This uses sound pings in order to measure water velocity
and water depth.
This particular station is important for flood warning.
The National Weather Service uses this data
in order to issue flood forecasts
and flood warnings when necessary.
My name is Bryce Redinger.
I'm a Hydrologic Technician with the US Geological Survey.
And here I am off-roading to get to one of my gauges.
Four wheel drive trucks are lifesaver out here.
Here's another shot of me. I'm cleaning out my measurement
cross section at one of my stations.
These plants block our stream flow measurement meters
and so making some obstruction free water to measure in.
I wish I could describe the smell here.
It's quite spectacular.
Let's say it smells very organic.
But yeah, we have a cross section.
So we're gonna let that clear.
I'll walk you up to the Gauge house.
Here we go, we putting it.
We had a bunch of visitors earlier,
I nuked them, so don't worry.
We're gonna be fine.
But yeah.
Yo, once that clears out,
we'll go and make measurement.
My name is Alison, I'm a hydrologic technician
with the US Geological Survey
Washington Water Science Center in Tacoma, Washington.
And today, I am at Rock Creek
near Maple Valley Washington and I am calibrating this guy,
this precipitation gauge. And what's happening right now
is I've got my calibration bottle
inside of this funnel here.
And it's filled with a known amount of liquid.
And there's a small nozzle at the end of the bottle
which slowly lets water drip down into the gauge.
And we call this a dual tipping bucket rain gauge,
meaning that there are two small buckets
inside of this apparatus and as one bucket fills up
completely, it tips down and empties its contents
and the other bucket rises up and starts filling with water.
And so each tip equates to a known amount of rainfall
or in this case, just tap water.
I have right here, a digital counter that I've hooked up
that will count every tip for me.
So I don't have to do it manually.
Each test, which I do about three times
takes about 30 minutes to complete.
So, I will be here for a while,
but that is essentially it. That is a rain gauge
and this is just one of the small things that we do
in the USGS to further improve and communicate science
and data to the public.
Hello, my name is Stephen Sissel.
I work for the United States Geological Survey.
I'm here in the beautiful, albeit rainy Pacific Northwest
in the Wacom Creek.
Today, I am charged with getting a velocity,
a width and a depth of this stream.
With those three parameters, we can collimator that data
via the web
from this Gauge house.
These Gauge houses are all over the country.
They're on mountainsides, they're under bridges
they're everywhere and the farms.
It's very vital that we share this resource with all.
Just like this rain is free, this river is free
so is our data.
It's the only natural resource that is necessary
for every biological process here on the planet Earth.
Greetings earthlings, its Russell Sherman with USGS
Washington Water Science Center.
I'm here today at the Cowlitz River
Castle Rock stream gauge, meeting with scientists
and technicians from the Oregon Water Science Center
and Cascades Volcano Observatory
to do a recon for new equipment install.
We're looking at putting in
a acoustic velocity profile meter
and a turbidity sensor and we need to figure out
where it's all going to go.
So, here's what the site looks like.
(train engine whistling)
The steering wheel behind me is an old one built
in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps.
It's been abandoned since
the Mount St. Helens rupture in 1980.
Current stream gauges is on the opposite side of the river.
And you know, we're trying to decide
whether we're going to try to rehab this old one
or install something new.