3. Great Lakes Data
Here you will find a collection of environmental data for the Great Lakes, including current observations, compilations, climatologies, and forecasts.
Wind, Waves, Currents and Temperature
The National Data Buoy Center collects and disseminates in-situ, real-time, quality-controlled observations in the marine environment to ensure safety, and to understand and predict the atmosphere, ocean, waves, ice, and climate. This site hosts historical and current data from buoys and shore stations recording winds, waves, currents, temperatures and other weather and climate variables.
The Great Lakes Observing System offers a local source for Great Lakes real-time in-situ data, called Seagull, including platforms that are not a part of the NDBC database.
The NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory's Next Generation Great Lakes Coastal Forecasting System (GLCFS) is a set of computer models that predict lake circulation and other physical processes of the lakes in a real-time nowcast and forecast mode, providing information on currents, water temperatures, short-term water level fluctuations (e.g. seiche, storm surge), ice, and waves out to 120 hours into the future.
Water Levels
Great Lakes water levels are continuously monitored by U.S. and Canadian federal agencies in the region through a binational partnership. Water level monitoring stations are operated by NOAA's Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS) and the Canadian government.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers provides a monthly six-month forecast for Great Lakes water levels by lake.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is currently conducting a Great Lakes Coastal Flooding Study, for the purpose of updating the coastal flood hazard information and Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRM) for Great Lakes coastal communities.
Bathymetry
Navionics, a Garmin company, offers an online chart viewer, similar to the information that would be available on a GPS system onboard a boat.
The US Office of Coast Survey offers a nautical charts page with links to online charts as well as chart identifiers.
If you are familiar with Geographic Information Systems (GIS), the National Centers for Environmental Information have a database of Great Lakes Bathymetric data.