To begin monitoring current conditions in a watershed, you will need to set the time window for viewing and updating the color bars and plot icons in your map display.

Set Time Window

You can either set a specific (i.e., fixed) time window (for reviewing a historical event) or you can set a time window relative to the current time (the default setting, used for monitoring incoming data in real-time).

To set or change the time window: 

1. From the Visualization tab, for the default Time Window, CWMS assumes that you want to monitor incoming data, so Relative to Current Time is selected. If you want to view historical data, you must select Specific Time Window.
   
2. If you would like to set the Time Window relative to the current date and time, select the Relative to Current Time and enter the Look Back Time and select either Days or Hours as the time unit. Normally you will set the time window to extend backward one to thirty days from the current time. Optionally, you can enter a Look Ahead Time and select either days or hours; this allows you to look ahead at data.
3. If you would like to set a historical Time Window, select Specific Time Window and enter the Start Date and Time of the time window and the End Date and Time of the time window for the historic data.
4. Click Refresh (Figure 1) to complete the time window change.

Time Series Icon Shortcut Menu

From the Map Window, the time series icons display, by right-clicking on a time series icon, a shortcut menu will display that allows you to view the data associated with a selected time series icon either in a plot, table, or using Microsoft Excel®. Also, from the shortcut menu you can access the Data Validation Editor (Validate) to edit the data associated with the selected time series icon. Another option is that you can view the legend of the selected time series icon. The shortcut menu is the same for all of the available time series icon types (i.e., for the color bars, thumbnail plots, graphics, or dots).