The Ocean Engineering Laboratory at the University of Michigan, in cooperation with the City of St. Clair Shores deployed an automated meteorological buoy in Lake St. Clair during the summer months from May of 2000 until July of 2002. This buoy was the first over-water data buoy to collect and report data in the lake. The buoy supplied wind and water data to aid in the development of a system to predict beach closures and to guide county health officials in water sampling strategies. The information received from the buoy was available to the general public.
The buoy used for this project was an Aanderaa Instruments Coastal Monitoring Buoy 3280. It is a self-contained, solar cell powered, moored data buoy that collects meteorological, sea state, and current conditions. The buoy is capable of reporting: wind direction, wind speed, current direction, current speed, air temperature, water temperature, wave height, and wave period. This data was transmitted to an on-shore station every 10 minutes. Once the data was received at the shore station, it was transferred to the servers at the University of Michigan via modem. This data was sent every 30 minutes, updating the web page. To view a more detailed description about the buoy, go to the Aanderaa Instruments web site or click the photo of the buoy below.
The buoy was anchored near 42° 30.0241' N - 82° 48.413' W which was approximately 5 miles east of St. Clair Shores, Michigan.
To view a sample of the data web page the reports the conditions for Lake St. Clair click here.
click icon for buoy description
Related Links:
Environmental Monitoring Network
