Welcome to timnolen

Welcome to timnolen.com

Ft. Patrick Henry Lake is our happy place.

Here is a link to live weather and history at the lake from our WeatherFlow station including temperature, wind, rain, solar flux, and any nearby lightning activity.

Below is a decade of water temperature data from our dock, about halfway between Warrior’s Path State Park and the Ft. Patrick Henry Dam, updated June 2026.

Here is the link to the Excel data file.

People ask me what affects the water temperature. Mostly, it is the prevailing weather as hot weather leads to higher water temperatures, but it’s also true that rainfall and outflow from the upstream Boone dam affects the temperature. Higher dam outflows in the spring and fall tend to reduce the temperatures. Note in the graph above the very large variability in surface temperature in the spring compared to other times of year. This is because there is a high variability of Boone Dam outflows in the springtime in order to control flooding. The surface temperature, which I’m showing above, varies a lot more than the temperature near the bottom and is much warmer, at least between about Lochridge and the Ft. Henry dam.

The surface temperature also varies from morning to late afternoon. On a sunny summer day, the afternoon surface temperature can be up to 8 degrees warmer than the temperature at sunrise. On a cloudy day, this difference is much less. In the winter, the air temperature is often less than the water temperatures, so the surface temperature is generally closer to that at 6-8 feet of depth. In the summer, the surface temperature is generally about 3-6 degrees warmer than that at just 6 feet of depth.