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| Dreamflows Help - Fantasy Flow Reports |
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| "I can't boat everyday, but I can always Dream"
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Help - Fantasy Flow Reports
About Fantasy Flows
On the Dreamflows Realtime and Daily reports, flow entries are:
- Gauge data or scheduled releases - assumed to be accurate data.
- Rating table conversions, estimates or informal utility projections - possibly inaccurate projections but nevertheless useful most of the time.
- Reservoir calculations - expect short-term fluctuations, but they are generally reliable when averaged long-term.
Fantasy Flows reports data of the above flow types for the current day, plus predicted flows up to three days into the future.
These predictions are labeled fant on the report and should be considered highly suspect, especially more than a day or two out.
Fantasy predictions are based on both current environmental conditions (like snowpack or recent rainfall),
and expected future conditions (such as predicted weather).
As you know, it's common for weather reports to be totally wrong when it comes to specifics such as timing and quantity of heat or precipitation.
Given that fant entries are based more and more on predicted weather the farther into the future they go,
expect fant entries to be more and more unreliable the farther into the future they go.
Having said which: when interpreted appropriately, Fantasy flows can be very useful.
In the same way that the weather report might tell you that it's likely to rain tomorrow,
Fantasy Flows might tell you that the North Fork American is likely to have boatable flows tomorrow.
The accents here are on "likely" and "boatable" ... the actual flow will almost certainly be different from the predicted flow,
perhaps radically different, but chances are reasonable that it will still be close enough that you can boat and have fun anyway.
Accessing Fantasy Flows
Experience has shown that many paddlers don't read the flow reports correctly, effectively ignoring
the different types of data being reported (see the previous section for a list of data types).
One typical result is that they expect all Dreamflows flow entries to be absolutely accurate at the time.
This is unrealistic - it isn't even true of gauge data - but the expectation persists anyway.
The addition of fant entries on the
Fantasy Flows reports compounds the problem vastly.
Someone who has a problem differentiating between gauge data and Dreamflows estimates, as well as knowing when different types are useful,
will have a huge problem coming to terms with fant entries.
Consequently, two types of fantasy flow report are being presented:
- The restricted report page is presented to unregistered visitors.
It contains data for only non-fant (i.e. relatively reliable) entries.
- The unrestricted report page is presented if you've been granted access.
To gain unrestricted access, all you have to do is request it in such a way that I know you've read this page.
For registration purposes an active Dreamflows account is required, though you don't need to be logged in to access the unrestricted fantasy flows report.
If you don't already have a Dreamflows account,
signup here, wait for the confirmation email to arrive, and follow the instructions (very simple) to activate the account.
Then, to request unrestricted access, send an email to
chris@dreamflows.com which includes your Dreamflows account Username and answers the following two questions:
- What is the significant difference between fant entries and other types of data?
- What use will you make of flows reported as fant on the reports?
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