Scottish River Levels for White Water Kayakers

White-water Kayaking in Scotland can be awesome, but getting on the right river in the right water conditions has traditionally only been possible for those with a sixth-sense.

WheresTheWater.com is specifically designed to show kayakers, canoeists, and rafters when and where the river levels are right for them. The service provides an at a glance view of which rivers are at what level for kayaking. Water levels are shown on a scale of empty (grey icon) to huge (red icon) along with the actual gauge reading in metres. Clicking on a dot opens up a graph of the SEPA gauge readings showing the river level over the last few days.

In order to take full advantage of the resource it's worth pointing out a few tricks of the trade...

The gauge readings collected from SEPA have been calibrated to allow the site to translate the reading in metres into a description of the river level as a paddler would describe it - i.e. "the rivers Low" or "it's High", giving a scale of Empty - Scrapeable - Low - Medium - High - Very High - Huge. The levels Low, Medium, and High are aimed to tie in with the description of the river in the guidebook - at levels above or below this range, the river may seem completely different to the guidebook description... be warned! Some of the rivers have been calibrated on the basis of very little information or even guess-work, so some are more accurate than others - it should go without saying that you should make your own judgement call on whether or not the level is suitable for you or not when you get to the river.

If you feel we've got the calibration wrong for a river, let us know by emailing kennybiggin@yahoo.com - it's particularly useful if you can tell us what level a river was actually at a particular time and date. If no data is available, then a grey dot with a red cross is used; if there is data available but it is considered out of date, then a grey dot with a minus sign is used - in both of these cases, the river could be high or empty - we just don't know....

There are some rivers in Scotland which can be kayaked at pretty much any level. The dots for these rivers will stay at least at Scrapeable or Low even if there is no water anywhere, or if we haven't got any up to date data from SEPA. These rivers are pretty much guaranteed to offer at least some paddling no matter what - they include the Spean Gorge, the Tay, and the Findhorn Gorge for white-water or the Lochy, the Teith, the Ness, the Tweed, and the Spey for easier stretches. Also good bets for white-water when there's not much water around are the Braan Gorge, and the Etive and its tribs (which you can slide down whether there's water or not!)

The majority of Scottish rivers are almost all spate runs, which means they go up and down like yo-yo's depending mainly on how much its raining. Some rivers go up and down quicker than others - it depends on loads of different factors like how big the catchment area is, what sort of ground / soil / rock it is, how steep the river is, whether there is a loch at the top, whether it's snowing higher up, whether there's snow-melt. So when you're working out which rivers are going to be running, you need to take all the different factors into account.

It's important to note that although Where's the Water polls SEPA for updates every few minutes, the data SEPA have is currently only collected from the gauging stations once every day - usually at 4 or 5 in the morning. We have been talking to SEPA about increasing the frequency of the data and also perhaps changing the times when the updates are collected. The situation may well improve before too long, but in the mean time we need to take what's available and use it on its merits.

So, try following the following advice to find the best paddling conditions:

Buy the Scottish White-water Guidebook - available from www.CanoeScotland.com
Leave making a decision on which river you're going to until you're just about to go
Start the decision making process by having a look at Where's The Water. Note which rivers look like they have water in them and make sure you look at what time the last data for those rivers was from. Look at the graph (by clicking on the dot) to see whether its going up or down and how quickly.
Now you know what level the rivers were at at a point in time, you need to work out what you think has happened since. Do this by looking at the Rainfall radar (link at top of the page). With practice, you can get pretty good at interpreting the rainfall radar and what it means for certain rivers. You need to get good at: identifying exactly where on the map your river's catchment area is; what the colours mean - white, red, and pink mean lots of rain, pink, green, and yellow mean some, while blue is drizzle. Rivers in Scotland need LOTS of rain to bring them up, and it needs to KEEP raining in order to keep them up!
Now you have a picture of what you reckon the rivers are like now, but you need to take into account when you'll actually get to them and what will happen between now and then. That is, if you have a three hour drive to get to the Nevis it could easily go up or down before you get there. So... have a look at what the forecast says, make a judgement call, and hope for the best.

Note that in the winter months, you need to think about how cold it is - if lots of rainfall is happening, but it's freezing at 1000feet, then a big part of the river's catchment is frozen. Likewise, rivers can get super high through snowmelt which can happen without any rain. Usually in Scotland the snow gets washed off the hills by warm rain - perfect for paddlers!!

Rid yourself of any limiting preconceptions about paddling in sunshine and warm weather - buy yourself some warm kit, and get out boating in the pissing rain when the rivers are huge... the adrenaline will keep you warm!!

Where's The Water? in association with The Scottish Canoe Association and SEPA

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Where's the Water? Read on to get the most out the service...	White-water Kayaking in Scotland can be awesome, but getting on the right river in the right water conditions has traditionally only been possible for those with a sixth-sense. WheresTheWater.com is specifically designed to show kayakers, canoeists, and rafters when and where the river levels are right for them. The service provides an at a glance view of which rivers are at what level for kayaking. Water levels are shown on a scale of empty (grey icon) to huge (red icon) along with the actual gauge reading in metres. Clicking on a dot opens up a graph of the SEPA gauge readings showing the river level over the last few days. In order to take full advantage of the resource it's worth pointing out a few tricks of the trade... The gauge readings collected from SEPA have been calibrated to allow the site to translate the reading in metres into a description of the river level as a paddler would describe it - i.e. "the rivers Low" or "it's High", giving a scale of Empty - Scrapeable - Low - Medium - High - Very High - Huge. The levels Low, Medium, and High are aimed to tie in with the description of the river in the guidebook - at levels above or below this range, the river may seem completely different to the guidebook description... be warned! Some of the rivers have been calibrated on the basis of very little information or even guess-work, so some are more accurate than others - it should go without saying that you should make your own judgement call on whether or not the level is suitable for you or not when you get to the river. If you feel we've got the calibration wrong for a river, let us know by emailing kennybiggin@yahoo.com - it's particularly useful if you can tell us what level a river was actually at a particular time and date. If no data is available, then a grey dot with a red cross is used; if there is data available but it is considered out of date, then a grey dot with a minus sign is used - in both of these cases, the river could be high or empty - we just don't know.... There are some rivers in Scotland which can be kayaked at pretty much any level. The dots for these rivers will stay at least at Scrapeable or Low even if there is no water anywhere, or if we haven't got any up to date data from SEPA. These rivers are pretty much guaranteed to offer at least some paddling no matter what - they include the Spean Gorge, the Tay, and the Findhorn Gorge for white-water or the Lochy, the Teith, the Ness, the Tweed, and the Spey for easier stretches. Also good bets for white-water when there's not much water around are the Braan Gorge, and the Etive and its tribs (which you can slide down whether there's water or not!) The majority of Scottish rivers are almost all spate runs, which means they go up and down like yo-yo's depending mainly on how much its raining. Some rivers go up and down quicker than others - it depends on loads of different factors like how big the catchment area is, what sort of ground / soil / rock it is, how steep the river is, whether there is a loch at the top, whether it's snowing higher up, whether there's snow-melt. So when you're working out which rivers are going to be running, you need to take all the different factors into account. It's important to note that although Where's the Water polls SEPA for updates every few minutes, the data SEPA have is currently only collected from the gauging stations once every day - usually at 4 or 5 in the morning. We have been talking to SEPA about increasing the frequency of the data and also perhaps changing the times when the updates are collected. The situation may well improve before too long, but in the mean time we need to take what's available and use it on its merits. So, try following the following advice to find the best paddling conditions: Buy the Scottish White-water Guidebook - available from www.CanoeScotland.com Leave making a decision on which river you're going to until you're just about to go Start the decision making process by having a look at Where's The Water. Note which rivers look like they have water in them and make sure you look at what time the last data for those rivers was from. Look at the graph (by clicking on the dot) to see whether its going up or down and how quickly. Now you know what level the rivers were at at a point in time, you need to work out what you think has happened since. Do this by looking at the Rainfall radar (link at top of the page). With practice, you can get pretty good at interpreting the rainfall radar and what it means for certain rivers. You need to get good at: identifying exactly where on the map your river's catchment area is; what the colours mean - white, red, and pink mean lots of rain, pink, green, and yellow mean some, while blue is drizzle. Rivers in Scotland need LOTS of rain to bring them up, and it needs to KEEP raining in order to keep them up! Now you have a picture of what you reckon the rivers are like now, but you need to take into account when you'll actually get to them and what will happen between now and then. That is, if you have a three hour drive to get to the Nevis it could easily go up or down before you get there. So... have a look at what the forecast says, make a judgement call, and hope for the best. Note that in the winter months, you need to think about how cold it is - if lots of rainfall is happening, but it's freezing at 1000feet, then a big part of the river's catchment is frozen. Likewise, rivers can get super high through snowmelt which can happen without any rain. Usually in Scotland the snow gets washed off the hills by warm rain - perfect for paddlers!! Rid yourself of any limiting preconceptions about paddling in sunshine and warm weather - buy yourself some warm kit, and get out boating in the pissing rain when the rivers are huge... the adrenaline will keep you warm!!