Contact:

Dave White, New York Sea Grant, Recreation/Tourism Specialist, P: 315.312.3042, E: dgw9@cornell.edu

Oswego, NY, July 30, 2012 - New York Sea Grant (NYSG) helped make a new real-time, Web-based tool available to recreational boaters on the St. Lawrence River.

With information generated from a Great Lakes Observing System (GLOS) data buoy (pictured here), the new Boaters' Forecast tool for the St. Lawrence River provides boaters with current and 12-hour-ahead data on water depth and current.

Boaters, marina operators, and anyone with a computer or smart phone can access the easy-to-use Web site at www.glos.us.

NYSG highlights the project via a 2013 "success story" fact sheet, "NYSG Assists Access to New Web-Based Tool..." (pdf).

“It is an online tool that boaters can go on to and actually find out current time, called Nowcasting, what the current is on the St. Lawrence River but also they can find out what the depth of water is in areas that they want to go boating,” said New York Sea Grant Recreation and Tourism Specialist Dave White during a discussion on WRVO radio. Based in Oswego, NY, WRVO Public Media is a part of the National Public Radio digital network.




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The Web site also provides an option for boaters to set up email or text message notifications to be sent to their phone when conditions are going to change to a certain parameter. Although the information can be accessed with a mobile device, White says it is not yet a smartphone. ‘app.’

“I mean this is something you would think would be perfect for an iPhone or Android app but the reason there is no app is because there is a real concern that if we did that, that folks would download it and begin to use it and forget that you're in international waters and depending on where you are on the St. Lawrence River, you may be bouncing off a Canadian tower and incur significant charges,” he said on WRVO.

The expansion of this technology was also a topic of discussion during a video interview with Watertown, NY-based ABC News affiliate WWTI-TV.

St. Lawrence River navigation gets boost with new online application (July 2012)


"As many people know on the river, we've got either ponding, cooling, draw down, a lot of activity that can occur on the river in a short period of time," New York Sea Grant Recreation and Tourism Specialist Dave White told Your News Now's Watertown, NY-based station. "This will give boaters an extra tool to look at for information that will help them have a good boating day."

New website for boaters (July 2012)


As White informs via a segment on Syracuse, NY-based ABC News affiliate WSYR-TV, "Sea Grant is bringing this new web-based forecasting resource to boaters through a partnership with The Great Lakes Observing System (GLOS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab (GLERL), integrating data from several sources including Environment Canada."

New website offers real-time information on St. Lawrence River (July 2012)



More Info: New York Sea Grant

New York Sea Grant (NYSG), a cooperative program of Cornell University and the State University of New York, is one of 33 university-based programs under the National Sea Grant College Program (NSGCP) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The NSGCP engages this network of the nation’s top universities in conducting scientific research, education, training and extension projects designed to foster science-based decisions about the use and conservation of our aquatic resources. Through its statewide network of integrated services, NYSG has been promoting coastal vitality, environmental sustainability, and citizen awareness about the State’s marine and Great Lakes resources since 1971.

For updates on Sea Grant activities: www.nyseagrant.org has RSS, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube links. NYSG also offers a free e-list sign up via www.nyseagrant.org/coastlines for NY Coastlines, its flagship publication, which, in 2014, merges with the program's e-newsletter, Currents. NY Coastlines is published several times a year.