Lake Champlain United - Forums

Thanks to "Popster" for the June 7 post re: Valcour Bouy. Additional/new details are below. Also, many thanks to the 27 folks that completed a survey of buoy data use by anglers this spring. I'll figure out a way to post a summary of the survey results later this month.

Two SUNY Plattsburgh instrumented “met” buoys have recently been deployed. The northern buoy is again found southeast of Valcour Island, where it was 1st placed in 2016. More specifically, it may be found at: 44.603 N 73.394 W (44°36'11" N 73°23'38" W) or about 0.8 miles east of Garden Island. New for this year is a second research buoy near the NY-VT border, at 44.0934 N 73.423 (44°05’37” N 73°25’22”), or about 4.2 miles north of the Lake Champlain Bridge.

The buoys collect, store, and relay information on surface weather and lake water temperatures (from the surface to the lake floor), at each location. Research Project Principal Investigator Dr. Eric Leibensperger maintains a website: (http://bit.do/PlattsburghBuoy) that makes the data available in near real time.

The same disclaimers/cautions listed last year still apply. The data are provided for general use, but attribution to SUNY Plattsburgh and our funding agencies is requested for any further distribution. Research support originates from NOAA Lake Champlain Sea Grant, the Lake Champlain Research Consortium, and SUNY Plattsburgh (Center for Earth and Environmental Science and Lake Champlain Research Institute). These are research instruments, not designed for multi-year monitoring of lake conditions. However, the Lake Champlain Research Institute and Dr. Leibensperger hope to continue annual deployments of the devices if no major expenses are incurred (e.g. nothing breaks) and day-to-day operational costs can be covered. Angling community interest and support for the Valcour device has been positive over the last two years. Please consider supporting further community-shared thermal observations with a tax-deductible donationhttp://bit.ly/supportPlattsBuoy


Some Do’s and Don’ts………..

Do…
• Take a look at the daily temperature profiles and recent (last 7 days) graphs of thermal
gradients
• Feel free to share this information with other stakeholders
• Notice the variation in the thermal profiles from day to day
• Compare thermal profiles and temperature plots between the main lake and south lake
instruments
• Contact us if you notice any suspicious behavior near the buoys

Do Not under any circumstances……
• Closely approach
or
• Tie off to
or
• Drag anchor near
or
• Attempt to troll closely past
or otherwise mess with the data buoys or the two floats on either side of the instrument!

Thanks! ……………………………………………..mark.malchoff[at]plattsburgh.edu

Saw one what looked like a little pontoon at the mouth of St Albans bay 2 days ago... Is that one of these you are putting out? From a distance I thought it was a fishing vessel it was so large...

Similar, but the St. Albans buoy is much larger with more/different instrumentation. No SUNY buoys in the Inland Sea. The one you mention is probably part of Middlebury College array funded by EPSCOR. See May 26 post by "popster" for details. Also check out National Buoy Data Center page for surface buoys with available data. See: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page. ... tion=45166
--Mark

Reelax wrote:Saw one what looked like a little pontoon at the mouth of St Albans bay 2 days ago... Is that one of these you are putting out? From a distance I thought it was a fishing vessel it was so large...