Above there are three photos taken around the same area on the Winooski River. The 1927 flood along the Winooski River caused extensive damage to the infrastructure surrounding the banks. In the 1927 photo there is a pontoon bridge that was used as a temporary replacement for the old bridge that was taken out during the flood. The upper channel of the Winooski after the flood is much wider with one small island in the Salmon Hole area. There seems to be three branches to the channel in the bottom of the photo. There is very minimal amounts of vegetation in the riparian zones. The channel has migrated since 1927 to the 2004 photos left, making it wind more. It is easily observed if you compare the road changes because of the migration. Compared to the 2004 re-shot image the channel is much narrower with three vegetated islands in the Salmon Hole area. The banks are now fully vegetated with the exception of the areas with buildings. The third channel from the 1927 image seems to have been cut off. In the Google Earth image there channel shape has changed slightly. The channel has cut away at the point bar near the top of the 2004 photo, and all that is left is a small island. The islands near Salmon Hole have changed shape again since 2004 and are less rounded with more vegetation. The third channel seen on the bottom of the 1927 photo is now completely cut off. All that is left is a pond of water. The riparian zone is less vegetated than the 2004 photo with more grassy area.
Data used to plot the Probability vs Discharge graph
Probability (%) vs. Discharge (cfs). This graph shows the probability of annual maximum floods of the Winooski River at Essex. An important piece of data in this set is from the 1927 flood shown in the far bottom right corner of the graph.
Above are the statistics showing the Average Annual Discharge and Max Discharge.
The Average Annual Discharge (cfs) has a percent standard deviation of 24.27 and the Max Discharge has a percent standard deviation of 52.1. This result is what we would expect because of the extreme outlier in the data set from the 1927 flood which is the largest recorded flood in recorded history in Vermont. The average does not include this outlier and can be seen by the 441.88 standard deviation compared to the 11505.9 for the data including the flood. With such a large anomaly the data from 1927 is important to leave out for averages and most other inclusive data sets.