Presentation on Near Shore Weather Buoys

Got the following email from a fishing buddy. For those of you in Western End, and especially Michigan, you might be interested in the following meetings. I know Ed from my work and he is a good guy. As one who used and enjoyed the special weather buoy in the Western End last year, sorry to hear additional funding is needed to bring it back this year. That thing was a huge help and a plus for safety! Here is the email:


I am writing to inform you of two upcoming presentations where real-time weather and wave monitoring will be discussed concerning Western Lake Erie. Both events are open to the public. Each presentation is only about 15 min in length and is part of the regular meetings of these two organizations. The presenters will inform you of how observations are made and what you can do to help increase the number of stations and buoys that report in real-time. Please don’t hesitate to email myself concerning any of the presentations. Please feel free to forward this invitation to other interested parties.

– Ed


Event #1: Metro-West Steelheaders
Date: Tuesday, February, 4, 2014
Time: 7 PM
Location: Livonia Senior Center, 15218 Farmington Rd, Livonia, MI 48154

Presenters: Ed Verhamme, LimnoTech; Steve Ruberg, NOAA-GLERL; also a representative from the NOAA National Weather Service will be present
Title: Real-time weather stations and buoys and forecasting
Presentation Overview: Mr. Verhamme is a Project Engineer with LimnoTech, an environmental engineering company based in Ann Arbor, MI. Originally from Escanaba, MI, Ed grew up walleye fishing on Little Bay De Noc and salmon fishing off of Door County, WI. Ed has been involved on a variety of projects around the Great Lakes including research projects on Green Bay, Saginaw Bay, and Western Lake Erie. Recently he has been working with local communities to deploy and maintain real-time weather buoys in the nearshore waters of the Great Lakes. Advances in technology make it possible to deploy self-contained data buoys much closer to shore than the NOAA funded buoys in the middle of the lake. The buoys report wind speeds, wave heights, water temperature, and turbidity every ten minutes over the internet. The presentation will focus on the technology as well as the logistics required to deploy and maintain the buoy. A weather buoy was deployed off of Monroe in 2013 as part of a special study, however local support is needed to bring it back in 2014 and beyond.

Mr. Ruberg is the Supervisor of Observing Systems and Advanced Technology Branch at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab (NOAA-GLERL) located in Ann Arbor, MI. Steve is responsible for maintaining a network of weather stations and buoys across the Great Lakes in support of NOAA’s research mission and cooperation with the National Weather Service. He also is developing advanced environmental measurement technology using innovations in the fields of electronics, mechanics, and software engineering. Providing high quality instrumentation packages for oceanographic, biological, chemical, and water resources data collection.


Event #2: Downriver Walleye Federation
Date: Monday, February 17, 2014
Time: 7 PM
Location: Westfield Activities Center, 2700 Westfield Rd, Trenton, MI 48183

Presenters: Ed Verhamme, LimnoTech
Title: Real-time weather buoys
Presentation Overview: Mr. Verhamme is a Project Engineer with LimnoTech, an environmental engineering company based in Ann Arbor, MI. Originally from Escanaba, MI, Ed grew up walleye fishing on Little Bay De Noc and salmon fishing off of Door County, WI. Ed has been involved on a variety of projects around the Great Lakes including research projects on Green Bay, Saginaw Bay, and Western Lake Erie. Recently he has been working with local communities to deploy and maintain real-time weather buoys in the nearshore waters of the Great Lakes. Advances in technology make it possible to deploy self-contained data buoys much closer to shore than the NOAA funded buoys in the middle of the lake. The buoys report wind speeds, wave heights, water temperature, and turbidity every ten minutes over the internet. The presentation will focus on the technology as well as the logistics required to deploy and maintain the buoy. A weather buoy was deployed off of Monroe in 2013 as part of a special study, however local support is needed to bring it back in 2014 and beyond