Upper Michigan’s Keweenaw Waterway recently acquired an impressive new waterfront feature in Hancock that sheds light on an important, yet often hidden, aspect of Great Lakes weather and safety. Michigan Tech scientists from the Great Lakes Research Center have installed a full-sized meteorological buoy at Small Craft, a waterfront craft cocktail and event space, to give visitors a firsthand view into how weather and wave data are collected across the Great Lakes. This landfast buoy hull, donated by OTT Hydromet, is affixed with a weather station supported by the Great Lakes Observing System (GLOS) to fill an important gap in water-level weather observations in Hancock and Houghton.
The buoy is meant to be an approachable insight into the fleet of dozens of similar buoy systems deployed around the Great Lakes each year that collect critical information on wind, waves, and air pressure in order to support weather forecasting for the shipping industry, fishing vessels, recreational boats, and beach-goers alike. Like other buoys, this station will stream its real-time weather data directly to GLOS’ interactive data portal Seagull where users can access local weather and water data from the numerous stations seasonally deployed around the Great Lakes.
The first of these met-ocean buoys in the Great Lakes were deployed in the late 1970s, prompted by the infamous sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald and a push for lake-wide wave and weather monitoring. As marine technology and scientific interest have advanced over the succeeding decades, the number of observing systems has grown dramatically, with GLOS collecting and distributing data from over 160 lake and shoreside stations around the region. Not all stations are quite this large; in fact many are beach-ball-sized Sofar Spotter buoys that collect water data on tethered lines beneath the surface.
On your summer road trip to the Upper Peninsula this year, head on up to Small Craft located in Hancock at the base of the Keweenaw Peninsula, and check out this new buoy installation for yourself! Informational signage will offer a greater insight into the design, deployment, and uses of buoy technology. The neighboring Porvoo Park and trail system offer iconic views of the active waterway and Portage Lift Bridge.
Thank you to story and photo contributors:
Lynn Makela, Small Craft
Jason Makela, Small Craft
Hayden Henderson, Michigan Tech Great Lakes Research Center
