WATER TEMPERATURE RECORDS FROM CALIFORNIA'S CENTRAL VALLEY, 



1939 - 1948 



By Oliver B. Cope, Fishery Research Biologist, 

 Branch of Fishery Biology 



CONTENTS 



Page 



Intr odu ■ t i on 1 



Methods and Equipment 2 



Scope 2 



Acknowledgment 3 



References 3 



Figure I. Map of Central Valley Stations preceding 4 



Index to Tables 4 



INTRODUCTION 



Biologists of the Central Valley Investigations, Fish and Wildlife 

 Service, Department of the Interior, have been carrying on for 60me years 

 studies of water temperatures in relation to the fisheries of streams of 

 Northern California, These studies began in 1939, as a part of the 

 fishery investigation occasioned by the construction of Shasta Dam on 

 Sacramento River, and have since increased in importance and in intensity. 

 Today, they are one of the prinoipal features of the fishery studies of the 

 Central Valley Investigations, The present prominent role of these inquiries 

 has been partly a result of a growing need for specific thermal data on 

 streams under consideration in connection with multiple water use projects, 

 and partly a result of requirements for basic studies of the limnology of 

 streams* Not only have many of these demands been met by the temperature 

 records accumulated in the study, but other requests, from both fishery and 

 engineering agencies, have been answered with extensive series of reoords. 

 In turn, Central Valley Investigations has had the benefit of temperature 

 data provided by other organizations. In spite of this free exchange of 

 temperature data, many useful series of records have reposed, unused, in 

 scattered files. The purpose of this report is to assemble the more 

 important ones from the northern Central Valley, and to make them avail- 

 able for handy reference. 



Temperature studies in the Central Valley, after 1939, began a gradual 

 development, paralleling the other fishery studies related to Shasta Dam 

 and its effects. During the war years, when the entire Shasta fishery 



