Two solitary data buoys floating off the storm-tossed Lake Superior shore near Munising and Granite Island were sudden stars in 2017. That October, they captured the largest waves ever measured on the Great Lakes—each 28.8-foot high—during a storm that claimed the lives of two people swept off rocks. This attention-getting event shows how buoy data help managers and the public comprehend the otherwise unimaginable force of a wild Lake Superior storm that caused six figures in damage along the coast. However, these beacons provide critical wave data throughout the field season, even when the waves aren’t quite so formidable. Challenge: Eye-popping weather, punishing conditions Sensor-based wave measurements in the Great Lakes only go back to 1979 when NOAA first began them. Before then, managers aided lake freighters in the Great Lakes with wave heights based on human observations.

For more than 100 years, the Stannard Rock Lighthouse has kept a watchful guard over Lake Superior. But now, a new weather buoy is joining the watch in a remote part of Lake Superior, providing much-needed weather data to local mariners, the National Weather Service (NWS), and researchers. Scientists from the Superior Watershed Partnership (SWP), Lentic Environmental Services (LES), and the University of Colorado-Boulder deployed the buoy on the lake in 2017. Since then, it has provided continuous data from one mile north of the lighthouse. A popular yet potentially hazardous spot This portion of the lake has recreational, cultural, and scientific importance. Built on a large reef in a remote part of the lake, the light is among the most popular trout fishing and charter boat destinations on the Great Lakes.

The NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office runs an unusual set of buoys. NOAA’s Chesapeake buoys originated as part of the John Smith Water Trail—a kind of aquatic Appalachian Trail for boaters. Although the buoys are no longer used as interpretive trail markers, they are now part of a larger observing system of 10 full-time stations. Challenge: Weighed down In the past, the team used the AXYS WatchKeeper buoy at these stations—but these buoys weigh in at around 4,500 pounds each, including anchor. This meant that the NOAA team had to contract out all deployments and retrievals. “You don’t have to lift it all at once, but the amounts you do have to lift are heavy, and most of the ships that can do that have a deep draft,” remarks Byron F. Kilbourne, an oceanographer at the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office. “The areas that we’re working in are pretty shallow. The bigger boats that can handle that equipment would chew up our annual vessel contract budget in one trip.”