Navigate icy, snowy, and slippery conditions with confidence!

Winter is upon us! Wherever you are located in the watershed, you have already encountered winter’s joys while monitoring. Remember, safety is our number one priority. If you cannot access your site safely due to snow, ice, or slippery conditions, check in with your local coordinator about adjusting your sampling date. Additionally, if your site is frozen, feel free to record “frozen water body” or “site conditions can’t be sampled” on your data sheet and in the data explorer use code “VV- Station not sampled due to bad conditions”.

Last year, in response to a number of inquiries asking for advice, ALLARM crowdsourced tips and tricks for winter sampling from Stream Team monitors and compiled them into a Winter Monitoring Safety Guide.

The guide has great advice including using a walking stick, wearing cleats or adding gripper attachments to shoes, and layering with waterproof gloves to keep hands warm and dry. Read the entire tool here: https://bit.ly/WinterMonitoring!