What is the best website to determine the water levels in the Everglades canals?

 

 

Reading the data from this site is Greek to me (example attached). 

https://www.sfwmd.gov/science-data/levels

You got it if you can figure it out.

 

You seem to be in the right place but I like https://www.sfwmd.gov/science-data/current-water-conditions and then click on the region that I am going to fish.  It is simpler.  You get water levels and a pretty good idea of which gates are open and the resulting currents.  For example, S11c is letting water out of sawgrass into the US27 fingers.  You can see  that under the Ft Lauderdale tab.  

 

The other useful thing is download the map of all of the SFWMD structures.  I have a pdf that calls out all of the gates.  It was called SFWMD_map_overview.pdf but I can't find it on the website now.  This link https://www.sfwmd.gov/sites/default/files/documents/em_flow_monitor_map.pdf looks like what I have.  Good luck.

This is great, thanks for the resources. 

 

What does the upstream, downstream, and flow indicate?

The SFWMD moves water north to south (mostly) so upstream is the north side of the gate while south is downstream.  Flow is a measurement of the current through the gate.  

Gotcha, so how do I know what the average is for that specific location to be able to determine if the water level is high or low?

Good subject. I often fish spillways and use the SFWMD website to know what spillways are open, the amount of water coming out of the gates, and speed of the water. Every location is different and it takes time to figure out when the fish bite best in these spillways but it tends to be very good fishing after a couple heavy storms.Its not easy fishing these spillways but you can be rewarded with some very nice fish if you fish these locations.