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August 26, 2005New buoy gathers valuable weather informationIt measures wind, wave height, tempsBY JOHN FLESHERThe Associated Press TRAVERSE CITY - A solar-powered buoy bobbing on the surface of Grand Traverse Bay is providing boaters, forecasters and other interested people with up-to-date information about the Lake Michigan waterway's sometimes volatile weather. And that's just for starters, if scientists have their way. The floating device is being added to a developing network of Great Lakes buoys that could support research projects on topics ranging from global warming to oxygen depletion. The University of Michigan's Marine Hydrodynamics Lab is managing the data transmitted from the buoy, which was launched last month. The information, updated every 10 minutes, became available over the Internet this week. The buoy will be removed during winter, when the bay surface often freezes. "This is going to have a lot of practical applications for near-coast users as well as the research community," Mark Breederland, the Michigan Sea Grant Extension educator for northwestern Michigan, said Thursday. The buoy is about 10 feet high, but only the top 4.5 feet reaches above the surface. It's fitted with sensors that measure wind speed and direction, wave height, and temperatures of the air and surface water. It is anchored about 1.5 miles north of Traverse City on the western arm of the bay, where the water is 150 feet deep.
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