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New buoy website We just worked to roll out a new built website that is much more mobile friendly. Http://glbuoys.glos.us. please don't hesitate to email me at [email protected] with any questions about accessing data from the buoys.

The cook buoy has a current meter on it. http://greatlakesbuoys.org/show_currentsAvg_pic.php?station=45026&uom=E&therms=7. The top set of arrows is the surface

Heading into the holiday weekend I wanted to make sure everyone has the links handy to the weather buoys deployed between Ludington and Michigan City IN. 45024 - Ludington 45161 - Muskegon 45029 - Port Sheldon 45168 - South Haven 45026 - Cook Plant south of St Joe 45170 - Michigan City 45007 - Southern Lake Michigan Website - http://greatlakesbuoys.org Text message - Text the buoy ID to 734-418-7299 Webcams - A link is posted on the greatlakesbuoys.org website.. or you can find them here www.limnotechdata.com The greatlakesbuoys.org website is going to be the new home of UGLOS and we are working to improve it next month. Please make sure to post if you find the buoys useful! I always need justification to keep deploying them. You can watch a short segment on how we deploy the buoys here -Ed

It could have been a lot worse after being hit by a 40 ft boat. We were able to get it fully functional again in 3 days. http://woodtv.com/2014/07/29/not-a-pretty-picture-bouycam-damaged/ Sent from my SCH-I545 using Great Lakes Fisherman mobile app

We worked very closely with a great group of organizations in South Haven to make this happen with the South Haven Steelheaders spearheading the effort. We received major contributions from the City of South Haven, Van Buren County, and Entergy Palisades Nuclear Plant. Other organizations supporting annual maintenance costs include the South Haven Yacht Club, South Haven Steelheaders, South Haven Convention and Visitors Bureau, Covert Generating Station, US Coast Guard Auxiliary, River Bend Boat Club, South Haven Kiwanis, Tournament Trail 333, and the South Haven Chamber of Commerce. The buoy will return for at least 5 years! PLEASE STAY AT LEAST 500 ft away from the buoy while trolling otherwise you WILL snag your fishing gear on the mooring chain. The buoy is an great asset to the region. Please do not tie up to it nor try to find it in the fog IF you see someone tied up to the buoy please notify the US Coast Guard immediately as it is against the law to tie up to an aid to navigation Coordinates: 42 23.82 N 86 19.86 W The buoy is located 2.5 miles due west of the pierhead in South Haven and has a flashing white light (flash period of 4 seconds). Links: All buoy data: http://uglos.mtu.edu South Haven Buoy: http://uglos.mtu.edu/station_page.php?station=45168 Webcam: http://www.limnotechdata.com/stations/albums/SouthHaven/ Don't hesitate to email me at [email protected] about the buoy. I love hearing from the folks that use it! -Ed Here's a snippet from a press release released by the City of South Haven: A new, high-tech weather and wave monitoring buoy was deployed on Wednesday, July 30, in Lake Michigan approximately two miles offshore of South Haven, Michigan. The new station will become part of a growing nearshore network of buoys currently deployed between Ludington, MI and Michigan City, IN to increase boating and swimming safety along the Lake Michigan shoreline. Purchase of the sophisticated buoy was provided by a $50,000 grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) and contributions from local organizations will support annual deployment and retrieval costs. The weather buoy will provide improved wind and wave observations for the nearshore waters of Lake Michigan in the South Haven area. The buoy measures wind speed, wind direction, air temperature, relative humidity, solar radiation, water temperature, wave height, period, direction, and also has a webcam. Real-time observations from the buoy are available freely to the public online at http://bit.ly/shbuoylink. A link to image and video clips, updated hourly, will be available at the top of the buoy page. Individuals can also receive the latest observations via text message by texting 45168 to (734) 418-7299. The service is free to use, however standard text message fees apply. Similar buoys are located within the region near Ludington, Muskegon, Holland/Grand Haven, St. Joseph, Michigan City, and offshore in southern Lake Michigan. The South Haven buoy will fill a 70 mile wide gap in present buoy stations. The other stations are also relatively new and have only been deployed for the last several years. However, within that period these nearshore buoy stations have become widely popular with boaters and the public and receive over 300,000 requests for observations each month.

A boat did in fact hit the buoy. The buoy is not a destination and folks shouldn't try to find it, especially in the fog! The lat/lon of the buoy is shown at the top of the page for each buoy on this website http://uglos.mtu.edu/ please mark it and stay away. At least 500 ft in all directions. I am headed over today to try to restore the buoy to full capacity! Its actually still semi-reporting despite having the top mast broke off.

We are considering adding a weather station/wave sensor off the Racine reef. IF there's anyone interested locally in helping us apply for a grant please email me ASAP [email protected] Thanks, Ed

Sorry I meant to say the South Haven buoy should show up in late June. The South Haven Steelheaders and the City of South Haven have been very supportive and have lead this effort.

The Michigan City buoy is deployed (45170). Also there should be a new buoy in South Haven showing up in late July (45028) that we just received a new grant to deploy. Ed

Cook and Port Sheldon Weather Buoys - Deployed for 2014!! The Cook and Port Sheldon buoys were deployed yesterday and today! It sure turned rough south of St. Joe yesterday, but we got it out today. Thanks to all of you that have emailed me that you use data from the buoy. PLEASE don't hesitate to email me at [email protected] with questions and comments. I only have one pair of eyes so please let me know if you see any issues with the buoy. Also email me any photos of the buoy if you happen to go by it! I don't get out on the water as much as I should. Please email me if you use data from the bouy. I forward those emails directly to the folks that pay the bills to keep the buoys deployed year after year. [email protected] Open House - Come out to an open house on Thursday, May 8 from 5-7 PM @ Pier 33. We'll have a buoy on display. Come and thank the Cook Plant personally for supporting the weather buoy deployed off of their plant. This is the only privately funded weather buoy on the Great Lakes and it wouldn't be here without their support. The Cook buoy is deployed 2.5 miles offshore of the Cook Nuclear Power Plant in 70ft of water. The Port Sheldon Buoy is sponsored by the Great Lakes Observing System in cooperation with the National Weather Service Office in Grand Rapids and is deployed about 3 miles straight out in 90ft of water. PLEASE stay 500+ft away from the buoy while trolling. DATA ACCESS UGLOS Cook Buoy - http://uglos.mtu.edu/station_page.php?station=45026 Port Sheldon - http://uglos.mtu.edu/station_page.php?station=45029 Text Message Test the Buoy ID to 734-418-7299. (Cook=45026, PortSheldon=45029) Dial-A-Buoy Call 888-701-8992 Enter Buoy ID (Cook=45026, PortSheldon=45029) Webcam (Port Sheldon Buoy only) Images & Video available hourly. Ignore the timestamp above the video clips. The video clip on the right is 720p resolution and the one on the right is 360p (loads faster on mobile phones). http://www.limnotechdata.com/stations/PortSheldon/

It is! We put it out yesterday! Please keep an eye on her and let me know how the data is looking.

After you mentioned that the currents were bad I checked the current measurements on the buoy off Port Sheldon over the weekend and you can definitely see the high readings. Bin 1 to 6 is the top 20 ft of the water column and it was moving up to 1 kt (~50 cm/s) on some days. Bins 7 to 12 ft cover 20 to 40 ft, and bins 13 to 18 cover 40 to 60 ft roughly. You'll notice that the water near the bottom is moving much slower. All of these factors make it very tough to tell what you actual lure speed is through the water. http://uglos.mtu.edu/show_currentsAvg_pic.php?station=45029&uom=E&therms=7

I'd bookmark this link for the webcam guys. Glad you find it useful! http://www.limnotechdata.com/stations/PortSheldon/

The link for the webcam is always at the end of this webpage where all the data is available http://uglos.mtu.edu/station_page.php?station=45029 Or you can access the webcam image and video directly from here http://www.limnotechdata.com/stations/PortSheldon/ Click the video thumbnail on the far right for a 720p video or the one in the middle for a 360p video clip. They load fine on smartphones as well! Ed

You guys beat me to posting. See this thread for more information and let me know if you have any questions about the buoy http://www.greatlakesfisherman.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30834&highlight=buoy

Holland/Grand Haven Weather Buoy Deployed for 2013!! I just deployed the weather buoy on Saturday. This buoy was funded by the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids to improve the marine forecast. I am still working on the data display a bit, but the data is available here http://uglos.mtu.edu/station_page.php?station=45029 And Here http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=45029 You can also send a text message to 734-418-7299 with 45029 in the body to get the latest results. The buoy has a newly installed 20 node thermistor string to report water temperature in 1 meter increments from the surface to near the bottom, which is 24 meters (80 ft) deep at the site. Let me know if you guys are using it and i'll post more informaiton in this thread

I don't mind at all Aaron. Please continue to spread the word! Also note that I am looking for funds to add on a thermistor string to the buoy next year. It'd be great to get the local fishing groups to fund this item as the fishermen use it the most.

Here's an update I sent out to folks yesterday about the Holland Weather Buoy. Please email me if you want to receive future updates directly ([email protected]) The Holland Sentinel also just ran a story on it. http://www.hollandsentinel.com/news/x1665854413/Weather-buoy-returning-in-2013-thanks-to-grant _______________________________________________________________ Its been a few months since I sent an email update about the Holland Buoy project that we completed in 2012. In my last update I mentioned that we were uncertain what would happen in 2013 and weren’t sure if the buoy would return or not. Since my last email we received dozens of emails from people across West Michigan who wanted to see the buoy return and everyone said that the data from the buoy was invaluable to them. Thank you to everyone that submitted an email! Its great to know our project was so well received last year! As a result of the success this email update is being sent out to almost 200 individuals who have expressed interest in the project. The pilot project was supported in 2012 by the Holland Convention and Visitors Bureau, Holland Board of Public Works, and Louis Padnos Iron and Metal. NOAA Coastal Storms Grant through GLOS In June 2012 (even before the Holland Buoy was launched), LimnoTech applied for a grant from the Great Lakes Observing System (www.glos.us) to fund the placement of a seasonal weather buoy in West Michigan from 2013 to 2015. The original source of the grant money was through the NOAA Coastal Storms Program (http://csc.noaa.gov/csp/) to improve the prediction of rip currents and high wind and waves in West Michigan through the use of a real-time near shore weather buoy. I am happy to say that we won this grant through an open bidding process! This $100,000 grant will fund a large part of the purchase, the deployment, maintenance, and retrieval of the weather buoy for the next three years. As part of our discussion with the National Weather Service office in Grand Rapids about the best location for the weather buoy we both agreed that the buoy should be placed between Grand Haven and Holland so that both communities could benefit by having a weather buoy close by. This means that the weather buoy will be deployed off of Port Sheldon next year at about the same depth, which is approximately 6 miles north of where it was deployed in 2012. As a result of the move the buoy will have a new identification number through NOAA. I will email that out in the spring once I know it along with the links to access the data in real-time. So the Grand Haven/Holland weather buoy is here to stay for at least three more years! Opportunities for Support - Water Temperature at Depth and Webcam The NOAA grant is covering the cost to measure the minimum requirements of what the National Weather Service requires on a weather buoy (wind speed and direction, air temperature, relative humidity, pressure, wave height and period, and surface water temperature). The grant is not going to support additional sensors that might be more valuable to other users groups in the West Michigan Area. This could include a string of temperature sensors to measure water temperature all the way to the bottom or a webcam to provide a real-time image and video of current conditions. The temperature string that was on the buoy in 2012 was a used one from another project and failed in September. If any individual or organization or business would like to contribute to the addition of these items on the buoy for 2013 please let me know ASAP. I’d be happy to provide more detail on either of these additions. The cost to add water temperature sensors all the way to the bottom would be approximately $5,000 and the cost to add the webcam would be about $5,000. Any sponsors would be recognized whenever possible including on the website displaying the additional data. The sensors would be redeloyed through at least 2015 with no additional funds. Unfortunately I am not able to provide any tax deductions for these items and my company is not able to accept funds smaller than $1,000. If another organization would like to raise money to see these sensors added please contact me and I can provide you the information. Please contact me if you want to “sponsor†one or a part of one of these sensors. Thanks for your continued interest in the West Michigan buoy project and I look forward to working with you over the next three years! Watch for another email in April with information about the buoy launch and where the data will be available. Please don’t hesitate to email ([email protected]) or call (734-681-0577) with questions. Please forward this email on to whomever you think would be interested. Happy New Year! Ed

Sorry.. LAST post.. ou can view the "live" water level on Lake Michigan by going to the link below and clickong on a thee Great Lakes and a station. The low water levels from 1964 was 576.05 ft. The current reading at the Holland station today was 576.18 ft, which is right in line with the forecast. So if the forecast holds, then water level could drop another 0.5 ft before the end of spring, creating a new measured low. http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/gmap3/

BTW.. the graphic in the pdf in the original post ends in October. Since then water levels have continued to decline and are forecast to go below the 1964/65 low levels. Here's the USACE forecast http://www.lre.usace.army.mil/_kd/go.cfm?destination=ShowItem&Item_ID=3885 which is updated monthly The observations and forecast are based on almost 93 years of measured data.