Great news for Saginaw Bay.

[Walleye Express]

For those of you who fish Saginaw Bay and know it's many fickle moods, planning a trip, reading and understanding what the wind forecasts means and/or flipping a coin to determine rather to trust what the wave higth forecasts are is usuall the norm. Well, after years of lobying from many of us that will soon be changing sometimes this season and I cannot wait.

Greetings from NOAA, National Weather Service, Detroit/Pontiac...

Hi Dan,

I am happy to report to you that plans are finalized for installation of wind equipment on Light #1. The National Weather Service and the U.S. Coast Guard have worked out the details that approves the installation, but the actual date of installation is still being determined. We expect that it will be installed this season for sure and are hopeful it will be early in the season. We will be eager to announce its availability when the time comes, so stay tuned to our web sites.

There has also been some discussion here at our office of using a rapid response water level gage as a wave height sensor at Light #1 as well, but this is still on the drawing board. Even just the wind speed and direction at that location will be a very welcome addition, I'm sure.

New this season, please take a look at our new marine web portal at http://www.crh.noaa.gov/greatlakes/

Meteorologist/Marine Focal Point

NOAA/National Weather Service

Detroit/Pontiac, Michigan

[schultzs]

That is good news. It will be nice if they do the wave height indicator some time too!

thanks for posting the info.

[JWheeler]

This should be real good. Is it possible for an accurate forecast? We shall see...

Thanks Dan..

[Baybum]

That is very cool. I also noticed today that when you look up the Inner Bay forecast it now lists it as "For Waters Within 5 Nautical Miles of Shore," and this is on the old bookmark. Now, if you go to this address

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?site=GRR&map.x=324&map.y=52

There is a map where you can click on anywhere on a map of the Bay(or the whole Great Lakes I'd assume) and it will give you a pinpoint marine forecast for that section of water. Capt. Dan I think this is something like the sectionalized marine forecasting for the Bay you have suggested before. This is such a vast improvement, we need to spread the word on this one.