Safety Team's Efforts May Lead to Expanded Water Current Mapping
New Weather Tower Transmitter To Provide Straits Area With Vital Safety Information
By Paul Gingras

Boating and swimming are now safer on the Straits of Mackinac owing to a recently completed National Weather Service (NWS) transmitter on a tower in Emmet County. Providing critical weather information across the Straits area, the transmitter has eliminated a long-standing blind spot for weather radio operators on the Straits, reported Mark Spencer, a member of the Mackinac County Water Safety Review Team, following an early October Great Lakes Beach Association Conference in Traverse City.

The meeting was attended by local Water Safety Review Team members.

Until recently, all-hazard weather radios in the Straits area lacked a signal on which they could receive weather information from the National Weather Service, explained Dave Guenther, a meteorologist and forecaster for the service in Marquette. He was a presenter at the conference.

Until the Emmet County transmitter went online, the nearest that Straits-area boaters could pick up an NWS weather radio signal was near Cedarville or Cheboygan, Mr. Spencer said.

Now, owing to broadcasts from the NWS station in Gaylord, area weather radios can pick up information 24 hours a day, including emergency weather alerts. Some radios include a feature allowing them to switch on automatically when an emergency broadcast comes through.

The transmitter is a big deal in the Straits area, Mr. Guenther said. Now, both boaters and onshore emergency service workers can receive detailed information on wind patterns, rain patterns, and dangerous weather. Weather radios can also be used to warn people about other types of emergencies.

The system will be used to quickly update emergency service workers about the development of rip currents, strong, near-shore lake currents responsible for drownings in recent years.

The currents are of special concern for the NWS and the Mackinac County Water Safety Review Team, which has worked to increase public knowledge of rip currents on the Straits, and has won awards for the effort.

In related news, a research project about currents is being planned for next summer along the Lake Michigan shoreline hear US- 2.

The University of Michigan has secured high-tech radar equipment from the U.S. Navy for use in the project, which is designed to increase understanding of rip currents and other water currents that can strengthen them.

Pending funding for the project, the Navy's radar systems will be placed, temporarily, at two points on the dunes along US-2 in Moran Township, and at another point on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, Mr. Guenther said.

The university is waiting for funding to pay for research time, for a van station where data will be collected, and for fuel, electricity, and other expenses.

Guy Meadows, director of the marine hydrodynamics laboratories at the university, is collaborating with a team of research assistants to increase understanding of rip currents, in part, by studying associated phenomena such as longshore currents and shipwash currents.

Computers are used by the researchers to simulate rip currents and seeks to study them in real-time situations, Mr. Guenther said.

The team seeks to measure the strength of waves and their directions near shore. The radar system has good resolution about five miles out into the lake and would be used to make surface measurements between the shore and sandbars, Mr. Guenther said.

Rip currents and longshore currents are both associated with sandbars. In areas where currents push narrow channels through sandbars, rip currents form, which are known to pull swimmers into deep water.

Longshore currents, like sandbars themselves, run parallel to the shore. Longshore currents can flow alongside sandbars, reach the gaps, and flow through them, strenthening the power of an existing rip current, Mr. Guenther said.

Longshore currents can be dangerous in themselves, he added. People wading to sandbars have been caught in these currents, swept into the lake, and drowned. This has happened near Hog Island and Saddlebag Island on the same day, he said.

The radar equipment would also be used to study shipwash currents resulting from the passage of large boats. Shipwash currents can knock over smaller vessels or drown swimmers, even when the large vessels pass at a significant distance, Mr. Spencer said.

Shipwash currents flow toward shore, strengthening longshore currents, which strengthen rip currents, Mr. Guenther explained.

The study may provide information in other areas of marine research. For example, if the study identifies areas of little water movement near shore, this will help identity locations where bacteria form. The data can be included in water-quality research.

The Mackinac County Water Safety Review Team plans to use the university's data to further educate the public on currents, in part, by adding more signs on beaches, Mr. Spencer said.

The Mackinac County Water Safety Review Team is planning to head a water safety conference in March or April. It will include government officials from municipalities throughout the Upper Peninsula that handle lakefront property issues.

It will also include members of Michigan State University Extension, the National Weather Service, area sportsmen's clubs, and other organizations with water-safety concerns, Mr. Spencer said.