Hood Canal

Hood Canal is a long, narrow fjord carved by ice-age glaciers along the western edge of Puget Sound (state marine area 12). Its deep, slow-mixing waters make it one of the most closely studied places on the West Coast: oxygen near the bottom can fall low enough in late summer to stress marine life, and the canal’s oyster and clam beds, including some of the best-known growing grounds in Washington, sit downstream of everything the watershed delivers.

What’s planned

Phase 2 is in progress. The map below previews the public data sources we plan to bring in for Hood Canal; outlined markers are planned sources, not live readings yet:

• Sensors in the canal: the University of Washington’s ORCA mooring at Hoodsport profiles temperature, salinity, oxygen, and algae pigments from the surface to the bottom, roughly twice a day.
• Water chemistry at a working hatchery: an analyzer on the seawater intake of a shellfish hatchery in Dabob Bay tracks the carbon chemistry that oyster larvae are most sensitive to, readings growers already rely on.
• River flow: the USGS gauge on the Skokomish River, the canal’s largest freshwater source, whose storm pulses change saltiness and can drive closures.
• Tides and currents: a NOAA current meter near Bangor records how water actually moves in and out of the canal.

The optional lease layer on the map shows state-managed (DNR) aquatic leases only. Most Washington shellfish farming sits on privately owned tidelands, a legacy of the state selling much of its tidelands before 1971, so the mapped leases are a small slice of the region’s working farms.

Coming soon

The launch order for the Washington regions is Hood Canal first, then South Puget Sound, then the San Juan Islands. Once these sources are checked and flowing, this page will work like the California bay pages: a live map, plain-language conditions, and clean datasets behind them.