BirdTrout
Ray Brook, New York
6.2 mapped river miles, draining 16 square miles, in the Saranac River basin watershed. No gauge stands in it; the nearest is 11.1 miles away, and what this page knows about its temperature is NYSDEC's classification of the water itself.
50°F and colder is cold, through cold-transitional and cool, to warm above 70°F — the same four bands, breaking at 58, 64 and 70°F, that the app paints. Grey is water nobody has measured.
The nearest gauge, and why there is no reading from it
The nearest gauge, 11.1 miles away at W Br Ausable R Trib 2 Ab St Hw 86 Nr Wilmington Ny, is not reporting water temperature: it has sent no water temperature for 1363 days, since 4 January 2023. A stopped gauge repeats its last value in silence, so there is no live temperature here. What is below is modelled from the years that gauge did report: this gauge's own fitted line, its intercept plus its slope against the 4-day mean air temperature over it, fitted on its own daily record, ±2.1 °F. The shape of the week at that gauge, not a thermometer in this stream.
Thermal classification
NYSDEC's classification of this water, reach by reach. A class, not a temperature — no July mean, because none was measured here.
| Reach | Typed miles | Band | NYSDEC type |
|---|---|---|---|
| RM 6.2–0.0 | 10.0 | cold | — |
NYSDEC has classified 10.0 of the 10.4 miles NHD carries for this stream — 96% of it. Every typed reach carries the same class, cold. The untyped reaches are not warm water — they are water NYSDEC's inventory does not reach, and the mile ranges above span only the reaches it does.
Questions about this river
- Ray Brook fishing report — what it reads right now
- How to get to Ray Brook — access, parking and public land
- Ray Brook fishing regulations — season, size and gear by reach
NYSDEC classification
NYSDEC classifies this water as Class AA — drinking water source and Class C — fishing. More than one class appears because the classification changes along the river. The thermal bar above shows where. On those reaches DEC also designates it trout spawning waters, trout waters — which is the half of the classification that is about temperature, and the half this map paints by. The class is a designation of best usage under 6 NYCRR — what the water is protected for — and not the season and creel rules, which change yearly and live with the agency.
NYSDEC water quality classifications and standards →
Public land on the river
4 units of public or open-access land touch this river, 82,591 acres in total. Acreage is the whole unit, not the part beside the water.
| Unit | Owner | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| Saranac Lakes Wild Forest | state conservation department | 81,861 |
| Meadowbrook Campground | state conservation department | 128 |
| Federal Correctional Institution | another state agency | 153 |
| Saranac Lakes | state conservation department | 448 |
Species
NYSDEC designates this as trout water — Trout spawning waters, Trout waters — without naming the species. No fish survey or stocking record for this water is in the files this site reads.
Tributaries and watershed
Ray Brook sits in HUC 8 04300106, the Saranac River basin, and drains 16 square miles, Strahler order 3 at the mouth. 20 NHD reaches carry the name for 10.4 miles in total — more than the 6.2 miles of drawn mainstem, because NHD counts side channels and braids as their own reaches.
Other water nearby
The closest 6 rivers on this site, straight-line from the middle of this one — not drive time.