(graph courtesy of Alabama Water Watch)

Q:  We just celebrated our first summer at the Lake in our new home, and I appreciate your contribution to making that happen.  I have been wondering where one can find the water temperature of the Lake?  We are headed down next weekend and are curious about whether it’s too cold for adults to swim.

A:  Have fun!  I am so happy for y’all!  I don’t know of a good resource for lake temperature that would give you a daily reading but there is a resource with some historical readings.

The Alabama Water Watch (AWW) is a citizen volunteer, water monitoring program that covers all of the major river basins of the state.  To read more about AWW click here for their website.

In the Lake Martin and Tallapoosa watershed area there is a group called Lake Watch Lake Martin (LWLM) that monitors 49 sites around the area.  According to their website “Trained volunteer monitors test water chemistry and do bacteriological monitoring.”  Part of what they report is the water temperature.

One of the monitors, Kathryn Braund (who was also kind enough to explain to me how to use the website) wrote an article for the Alex City Outlook about her experience as a monitor.  Read the article here.

The graph above, found on the AWW website, shows the water temperatures at the Smith Landing monitoring site as read by LWLM.  The temperature was recorded 201 times between October 1994 and September 2016 with each red dot representing a reading.  So for example when the reading was taken in January 2016 the water temperature was about 12° C or  54° F – pretty chilly water as you would expect for that time of the year.

If anyone out there knows of another resource for the temperature of the Lake please let me know!  Call me at the number at the top of the page or contact me here.