everhamme

Here's an interactive way to look at water levels. http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/data/now/wlevels/dbd/

Thanks for the support! We are working on identifying a local group to accept the funds. I'll let you guys know as soon as we find one (if you know of any let me know!). Send me an email directly to [email protected] if you'd like so I can make sure you get a directed email. Ed

Good question! At face value it does seem like alot of money. The buoy hull and aluminum mast itself is custom fabricated in small batches by S2 Yachts and their suppliers at a cost to us of $25,000. The weather instruments, batteries, solar panels, and datalogger add on another $10,000 (these are high quality sensors designed for harsh marine environments). The wave sensor alone is custom desinged to match the buoy hull and costs about $6,000. In addition we have money invested in the mooring chain, hardware, and anchor. In total this is about $50,000. The next comparable buoy that I could find had a cost of close to double this and was made in Canada (this same company also makes the buoys used by NOAA in the middle of the lake). There are no comparable US made buoys with these same capabilities. We hope to recover the capital cost over 5 years ($10,000 per year). The remaining $15,000 per year is used to pay for all of the costs associated with deploying the buoy and maintaining its high quality data feed throughout the year and retrieving it and storing it. Its hard to justify cutting out this cost or having others take over parts of the responsibility as it gets difficult to maintain quality and efficiency. There really is no comparison to this estimate as no one in the Great Lakes is doing this. I will say that I've poured over this budget many many times and I want to see the true cost of maintaining a buoy incorporated into the budget. Another funding scenario is someone donates funds to cover the buoy hull and sensors then we just bill our services out on a time and materials/as needed basis (rahter than an estimated lump sum). This could save money in the long run, but we really need an agreement set up to ensure funds are available to pay all expected and unexpected costs. In the $25,000 figure this is essentially a lump sum that makes us responsbile for providing data for an entire year without any of the end users/customers worrying about repairs, storage, etc. We are searching for other equipment alternatives that still provide the same level of data quality, but short of building our own buoy I haven't found anything yet. I'm happy to answer more questions. Ed

The total to bring it back to Holland next year is $25,000. The buoy is literally used by thousands of people and it only takes 1,000 people donating $25 to reach that goal. I know the data is worth at least $25 to folks or even $50 or $100 to guys that check it everyday. However, we need a local organization to at least offer to accept individual and business contributions to bring it back next year. So ask your local fishing club board if they want to help bring the buoy back next year. Ed

Glad to hear it guys!

Holland Sentinel just ran a story about the buoy funding issue in today's paper. http://www.hollandsentinel.com/news/x346785901/Future-of-buoy-could-be-sunk-without-funding

Holland and St. Joe Weather Buoys Pulled for the Season: Are they coming back? With a break in the weather yesterday and today we took the opportunity to retrieve the Holland and St. Joseph weather buoys for the season. As of right now I don't have any guarantees to bring them back next year. The Holland Sentinel covered the Holland buoy coming out of the water http://www.hollandsentinel.com/photo/x1831582253/Hollands-weather-buoy-brought-in-for-season?img=0 If you want to see either of these buoys come back next season please send me an email [email protected] and tell me how often you accessed data from the buoys and why you'd like to see them return next year. This will really help for the St. Joe buoy as the Cook Nuclear Plant loves knowing that people are using data from the buoy. For the Holland Buoy I would encourage you to think carefully the actual ($$) value the buoy provided to you this year and send an email to [email protected] telling her that dollar amount and what you will do to help them bring it back next year. Get your local fishing or boating club to donate funds. This buoy is not coming back unless local people like you support it. We have already received dozens of emails and are currently looking for an organization to accept donations that would be used to support the annual deployment of the buoy. Thanks again for a great year and we look forward to coming back next year! Ed

I just found this post. Great discussion guys on using all available information to make the call whether to go out or not. @Kid_Coulson, make sure to also check the "wave period" in the wave observations. The wave period is the amount of time (in seconds) between each wave. The higher the period the further apart the waves are. Typically "rollers" have a period period greater than 4 to 6 seconds and choppy waves are 2 to 3 seconds. So wave height plus wave period tells you ALOT about the sea state. If you see a wave forecast that says "2 to 4" I would always take the average of those two and then double it to know about how large some waves could be. So with a 2 to 4 forecast you will ocassionally see waves to 6 ft (so for 1 to 3 ft you'll see waves up to 4 ft). Also know that NOAA forecasts are very "generic" and cover large areas over an entire day. Conditions change hourly and can vary significantly nearshore to offshore. In small boats stick close to shore and ALWAYS carry the right gear. Feel free to post again any questions you have as folks are always willing to offer advice and your question is helping many other people as welel.

I created an easy to read reference guide for the NDBC stations. www.reelinn.com/ListOfGreatLakeNDBCStations_080812.pdf Here's the press release that went out last week www.reelinn.com/PressReleaseBuoyDataTextMessage_080612.pdf

Thanks for asking Dan.. I am using Twilio to forward your text message to some PHP code hosted on a different web server which takes your message body and then downloads an XML formatted file of the NDBC latest observations (e.g. http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/data/latest_obs/45026.rss) Your SMS message fills in the last part of the URL. The PHP code then parses the XML formatted feed and formats it so it fits into 160 characters and then it sends a single text string back to Twilio, which forwards you back a text message. Whole thing is only a few lines of code.. hardest part is stripping out extra information.

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

The buoy is in 80 feet of water.

Hey guys.. glad to see so many people talking about the buoy. I am the lead engineer responsible for the buoy. When I get a little more time i'll post more details about the buoy. But check out more details at the links below. Also check out www.limno.com/buoy as i've posted alot of resources here on our buoy in St. Joe and Holland. We are having some problems with the wave sensor and air temp. I should have those fixed this weekend! I'm glad you guys like the temperature data... as a salmon fishermen myself I made sure we got all those temp sensors working down as far as we could affort (60 ft). If someone pitches in another $250 i'll add another sensor down at 65 ft! Please don't hesitate to email me direclty at everhamme at limno.com with questions or comments about the buoy. I would also appreciate an ocassional email saying that you used the data (since most people only email when something goes wrong). 2. Holland Sentinel Article (front page) http://www.hollandsentinel.com/news/x236225281/5-things-to-know-about-Holland-s-new-weather-buoy 3. WOODTV8 Coverage http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/news/local/ottawa_county/weather-buoy-set-for-lake-michigan 4. WZZM Coverage http://www.wzzm13.com/news/article/218574/2/Holland-launches-buoy-to-improve-forecasting 5. WHTC Coverage http://whtc.com/news/articles/2012/jul/17/new-weather-buoy-launched-on-lakeshore/ Thanks, Ed