GoMOOS buoys in West Penobscot Bay and off Mt. Desert Rock

By: Tony Mignone

GoMOOS, which stands for Gulf of Maine Ocean Observation System, is part of a national pilot program to designed to collect oceanographic and weather data from the Gulf of Maine. It is supported by a consortium of Universities, marine interests and the Navy. So far two GoMOOS buoys have been deployed in the WFO Caribou forecast waters. One of the buoys is located in West Penobscot Bay and the other approximately 7 nautical miles to the north of Mt. Desert Rock. These buoys have been collecting a variety of data. This data includes wind speed and direction, visibility, air temperature, wave height, ocean current and direction, water temperature at various depths, and information on salinity and chlorophyll. All of this information is available at the GoMOOS Web site at  http://www.gomoos.org/

For our purposes at the National Weather Service, wave information, wind data, air temperature and water temperature are most important for marine forecasting. Before the deployment of the GoMOOS Buoys, the only data available to the forecaster was from the NOAA C-Man Station on Mt. Desert Rock This station only reported wind information and temperature. Now with the new buoys, much more information is available and from more than one location. One of the most important pieces of information is the wave height. Before GoMOOS Buoy deployment, very little real-time information on waves was available for the northern Maine Waters. Now hourly wave heights are available from both buoys, and soon they will be upgraded to measure the wave period as well. Observations of surface water temperature are also very important to us. While ocean temperature could previously be derived indirectly from satellite observations, the buoys now allow direct, hourly measurements at different locations in the northern Maine coastal waters. Very little real-time information on visibility was previously available. The buoys now provide this information on an hourly basis as well.

These observations are important to the National Weather Service in different ways. First it is important to the meteorologist preparing the marine forecast to have the most recent weather and wave observations available. This information will allow the meteorologist to assess the current performance of weather and oceanographic models which provides guidance in the forecasting of these parameters. The second purpose of this information is to access the accuracy of the marine forecast. At the Caribou Forecast Office, the information provided by the buoys is compared against each marine forecast that is issued to generate statistics on the accuracy of the forecasts.

There is no question that the information provided by these new sources of data in the Gulf of Maine have improved the accuracy of the marine forecasts. We look forward to continued, and more detailed information from buoys in the Gulf of Maine in the future.

For additional information on other ocean buoys, and satellite coverage, visit the NOAA homepage and check out the NOAA Online Magazine.

Click here to learn more about the National Weather Service's marine weather program.