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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.

I set up a beta text message service to allow folks to access the latest observation from any NDBC buoy or land station on the Great Lakes via a simple text message. I am posting it here so that folks can check it out and let me know if they use it, if it worked, and was the data useful. Right now this service is underwritten by LimnoTech, however if its used by alot of people we will look to continue it in coming years with outside support. To use the text message service simply do the following 1. Look up the station ID at http://bit.ly/ndbcstations 2. Text the station number (in the body of the message) to 734-418-7299 I tried to find a really fast server to put the service on so you should get a reply back in a few seconds. Let me know if you find this useful and stick the number in your phone as you'll never know when you'll need it! If you'd rather hear someone read you the reading over the phone just use NDBC's Dial-A-Buoy Number Call 888-701-8992 or 301-713-9620 and key in the same buoy ID. Ed