NANOOS Engagement Lead Rachel Wold and Ocean Coach Charlie Loos demonstrated the NVS Fishers web app, a free online tool that provides near real-time and forecasted data to help anglers visualize ideal fishing conditions and safe navigation. Features for tuna and salmon fishers include surface temperature and currents, chlorophyll, pycnocline, and thermocline, and forecasted bottom oxygen for crabbers. Other features include digital NOAA nautical charts, routing capabilities, and more. Thanks to Charles and everyone who joined us, and feel free to send us your feedback.
NANOOS, PacIOOS, and AOOS Backyard Buoys partners were hosted by the Quileute Tribe in La Push, WA, on 19-20 Feb 2025 for our annual All Hands meeting. We experienced the beauty and the brawn of a Pacific Northwest winter while trading success stories and lessons learned. All three regions have deployed and maintained buoys over the last year and shared stories of how the data are being used to improve safety. We will release a meeting report in the coming weeks, and you can now download the Backyard Buoys app to your phone!
NANOOS is proud to host a webinar highlighting the NVS Fishers web app, a free online tool that provides near real-time and forecasted data to help anglers visualize ideal fishing conditions and safe navigation. Features for tuna and salmon fishers include surface temperature and currents, chlorophyll, pycnocline, and thermocline, and forecasted bottom oxygen for crabbers. Other features include digital NOAA nautical charts, routing capabilities, and more. NANOOS Engagement Lead Rachel Wold and Ocean Coach Charlie Loos will demonstrate how to use this tool to help you stay safe and catch more fish!
Register using the link below and see you on 18 March 2025, 12-1 PM PT, via Zoom. The webinar recording will be made available on the NANOOS website.
A high school student advised by NANOOS PI John Mickett and supported by NANOOS Harmful Algal Bloom Observing Network (HABON) funds was recently named a Regeneron Science Talent Search Scholar. Anson Chen, a senior at Nikola Tesla STEM High School in Redmond, WA, developed a machine-learning model to predict HABs in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) using historical observations of HAB samples with ocean and other measurements. His results to date have been impressive, with excellent predictions two weeks in advance at some sites. Anson used ORHAB data among other sources to feed the algorithm and presented his results to the ORHAB group last summer. The goal is to improve HAB prediction in the PNW, possibly adding this evaluation of risk to the PNW HAB Bulletin, available via NANOOS.
A 7.0 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Northern California resulted in a tsunami warning and evacuation in Coos Bay and other parts of Oregon on Thursday, 5 December 2024. The warning was fortunately cancelled after a few hours and didn't result in a local tsunami this time but made many locals aware of the importance of preparedness and knowing where the designated safety assembly areas are located ahead of time. It was great practice to see how immediate the local traffic impeded quick evacuation, and community members were quick to share the NVS Tsunami Evac app on social media:
"This is a great tool to see if you're in a tsunami safe zone or evacuation area! Stay prepared friends!"
"There's an app! NVS Tsunami Evacuation. It's free — access it now! This is a really awesome website — type in your address and see where you are in relation to local and distant earthquakes/tsunamis. And keep in mind that in the event of a larger tsunami, your roads/routes will likely go through the inundation zones...good idea to make a plan now so we are all a little more ready for next time."
"This is awesome!!! And I'm going to print this part out to hand out to cars passing by on the next alert! Perfect."
OR/CA had a Tsunami Warning yesterday. It's a good reminder to have a plan.
This storm season has been unusually intense this year, with multiple major storm tracks including a bomb cyclone generating a historical pressure drop and 13 meter waves. This has been particularly hard on our in-situ assets off the coast. We are indebted to the US and Canadian Coast Guards and the Makah Tribe for their roles in helping us recover valuable assets affected by storm action. The CRITFC/CMOP Plume buoy moved a couple km in November, and then another 1 km during the bomb cyclone. The US Coast Guard volunteered to recover the buoy in order to remove it from its new potentially hazardous location close to a shipping channel. The Coast Guard Cutter Elm successfully recovered the buoy mid-December, and it is now home at the new CMOP Field Office in Astoria, Oregon.
Farther north, the UW/APL Cha'ba buoy withstood the bomb cyclone but broke loose afterwards. Fortunately it drifted into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, where the Neah Bay Coast Guard helped tow it closer to shore. The Makah Tribe's F/V Alyeska then plucked it out of the water with all of its equipment intact.
Lastly, one of the two Quileute Tribe's Backyard Buoys spotter buoys went adrift during the bomb cyclone and wandered for a while. Fortunately, the Canadian Coast Guard Cutter Sir Wilfred Grenfel was able to recover the buoy off the coast of Vancouver Island and it has been retrieved.
Photo Credit: CRITFC
19 Dec 2024
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LiveOcean Webinar
Thanks to Dr. Parker MacCready for a fantastic webinar highlighting the UW Coastal Modeling Group's LiveOcean, and to everyone who joined us and engaged with so many great questions! In case you missed it, or if you would like to review the content, the recording is available on the NANOOS YouTube page and linked below. You can also find it along with other NANOOS webinars and tutorials on the new NANOOS Videos page.
NANOOS is proud to host a webinar highlighting the UW Coastal Modeling Group's LiveOcean, a computer model simulating ocean water properties. LiveOcean makes 3-day forecasts of currents, temperature, salinity, and biogeochemical fields like oxygen and phytoplankton. It is accessible on NVS, along with many interactive features. Join Dr. Parker MacCready, LiveOcean Project Lead, to learn about the model, how it can be accessed and utilized, and have the opportunity to provide feedback.
Register using the link below and see you on 10 December 2024, 10-11 AM PT, via Zoom. The webinar recording will be made available on the NANOOS website.
A comprehensive look at Puget Sound marine conditions for the year 2023 is now available. Physical, chemical, and biological information, ranging from large-scale climate variations to local biota monitoring, is summarized to provide a thorough overview of conditions in Puget Sound and the surrounding area during 2023. The report includes many contributions from NANOOS, and is published by UW's Puget Sound Institute and Puget Sound Partnership as part of the Puget Sound Ecosystem Monitoring Program.
NOAA's most recent West Watch was held on 15 October 2024. The webinar summarized coastal environmental conditions and impacts in the Western Region. The webinar included contributed slides from the NANOOS, CeNCOOS, and SCCOOS regions, who regularly report on their local coastal ocean conditions. The next webinar will be in December. Contact us at NANOOS if you want to participate and please let us know if you have any comments.
Backyard Buoys shares their story of democratizing data through co-design and co-production in a special issue of Oceanography Magazine, "On a Vision for Capacity Sharing in the Ocean Sciences". The article describes how remote coastal Indigenous communities and IOOS Regional Ocean Observing Systems work together with a common purpose, safety at sea. By sharing expertise across regions and disciplines, the team can meet known challenges efficiently while remaining flexible to emerging needs or constraints. Underpinning it all is an understanding that co-production takes time, trust, and commitment, and that the lessons we learn will help future wave buoy stewards and their communities. Photo Credit: Dennis Wise, UW
NANOOS PI Jack Barth and Jace Marquardt (OSU) visited the Quinault Indian Nation's Taholah School on September 30, 2024, the day before successfully recovering an underwater glider off Westport, WA. Jace and Jack brought an underwater glider for interested Taholah high schoolers to take apart, examine all the internal electronics and mechanical features that make the glider work, and then put it back together. The students were eager to get their hands on the equipment and caught on quickly about how we use o-rings to keep out sea water and about the many other technological innovations in underwater gliders. Photo Credit: Quinault Indian Nation
CRITFC-CMOP Recommended for Coastal Resilience Grant
The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC) has been recommended for a three-year grant to improve its CMOP modeling in the Columbia River estuary and apply the modeling to coastal resilience efforts on the WA side of the estuary under the NMFS Office of Habitat Conservation. CRITFC will lead this effort to identify climate change threats through hydrological modeling to support salmon recovery in the Columbia River estuary. Building on NANOOS-supported CRITFC-CMOP estuary models, this project will create a positive feedback loop between the ecosystem and cultural resilience by increasing tribal capacity to develop and implement powerful modeling tools to guide restoration decisions.
The Department of Commerce and NOAA announced $101.5 million in funding across 12 awards to expand equitable service delivery and support the modernization of the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) Regional Associations. These funds are made possible by the Biden-Harris Administration's Inflation Reduction Act. NANOOS will use this funding to support regional coastal resilience in the Pacific Northwest by investing in: better detection of ecosystem stressors such as harmful algal blooms, hypoxia, and marine heat waves; expansion of hyper-local wave buoys in the region; co-design of data products and decision-support tools; and engagement with a broader swath of communities.
Se'lhaem Monitoring Buoy Deployed in Bellingham Bay
NANOOS partners redeployed the Se'lhaem Buoy, located in Bellingham Bay, WA, on 19 August 2024. The buoy is a collaboration between Northwest Indian College, Western Washington University, and the Northwest Environmental Moorings Group at APL-UW. The buoy collects and transmits in near-real time data of wind, air temperature, water temperature and salinity, and more. The Se'lhaem buoy, first deployed in 2016, has provided data for researchers, students, and Tribes to observe and learn about the state of the environment in Bellingham Bay. Cascade Daily News covered the deployment with an excellent article and photos. Photo Credit: Amy Larsen
NOAA's most recent West Watch was held on 20 August 2024. The webinar summarized coastal environmental conditions and impacts in the Western Region. The webinar included contributed slides from the NANOOS, CeNCOOS, and SCCOOS regions, who regularly report on their local coastal ocean conditions. The next tentative webinar date is 15 October 2024 at 1 pm. Contact us at NANOOS if you want to participate and please let us know if you have any comments.
NOAA's most recent West Watch was held on 21 January 2025. The webinar summarized coastal environmental conditions and impacts in the Western Region. The webinar included contributed slides from the NANOOS, CeNCOOS, and SCCOOS regions, who regularly report on their local coastal ocean conditions. The next webinar will be 13 March at 11am. Contact us at NANOOS if you want to participate and please let us know if you have any comments.
NANOOS Lightfish Completes First Offshore HABs Mission
NANOOS and partners have started using a combination of new technologies to improve the frequency and coverage of offshore HAB observations in the Pacific Northwest and better inform public health officials and marine resource managers of HAB risk. We are pleased to announce the first successful operational mission of the SeaSats Lightfish, a solar-charged autonomous surface vehicle, augmented with a water sampling system designed and built by APL-UW. In late July, the Lightfish covered a 60-mile trackline out of Newport, OR, collecting 15 water samples near Heceta Head and rapidly returning them to a shore-side lab. Samples were analyzed at the OSU Hatfield lab for plankton abundance, species composition and levels of domoic acid, the HAB toxin that causes amnesic shellfish poisoning. This work is possible by funding from both the IOOS Ocean Technology Transition Program and NANOOS HAB-ON program.
NOAA's most recent West Watch was held on 18 June 2024. The webinar summarized coastal environmental conditions and impacts in the Western Region. The webinar included contributed slides from the NANOOS, CeNCOOS, and SCCOOS regions, who regularly report on their local coastal ocean conditions. The next tentative webinar date is 24 August 2024 at 1 pm. Contact us at NANOOS if you want to participate and please let us know if you have any comments.
NANOOS has developed a brief video tutorial that walks users through various data products developed to help visualize where ideal and safe fishing conditions occur, including combined SST and surface currents, pycnocline, and thermocline forecasts.
Imperiled by OA: How US Pacific Shellfish Farms Are Coping
A recent article in Dialogue Earth, the second in a two-part series, features NANOOS Executive Director Jan Newton and shellfish growers and scientists from our region who describe how monitoring through IOOS for OA and water treatments are helping growers in the PNW, and can provide a model to help growers in West Africa. The article outlines similarities between challenges faced by shellfish growers in the PNW and Senegal, calling out the importance of funding and highlighting the disparity in support for monitoring programs across the world. Photo credit: Ted S Warren / Alamy
The spring deployment cruise off the coast of La Push, WA, recently took place aboard the U Washington's R/V Robertson to recover Winter Cha'ba and deploy Summer Cha'ba, NEMO-Subsurface, and ESP moorings. A field team from the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC) joined the deployment cruise to shadow and support the UW-APL group. This was a valuable training opportunity for CRITFC staff, who gained knowledge on topics including rigging, boat operations, buoy design, AIS systems, ESP prep, and troubleshooting. The experience also strengthened bonds between these two NANOOS partners. We look forward to future field shadowing opportunities as a valuable tool for knowledge transfer among NANOOS field staff. Photo Credit: John Mickett
22 May 2024
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NANOOS Presentation for NOAA West Watch
NOAA's most recent West Watch was held on 16 April 2024. The webinar summarized coastal environmental conditions and impacts in the Western Region. The webinar included contributed slides from the NANOOS, CeNCOOS, and SCCOOS regions, who regularly report on their local coastal ocean conditions. The next tentative webinar date is 18 June 2024 at 1 pm. Contact us at NANOOS if you want to participate and please let us know if you have any comments.
A recent article in the Arctic Sounder highlights the importance of accurate ocean conditions for subsistence hunters and fishers in Alaska. John Hopson, a hunter out of Wainwright, explains how beneficial the Backyard Buoys project and prototype app has been: "Now we can just pull out the app as soon as you get up, because it's real-time, and you can see, ‘Oh yeah, I can go boating today,' or 'Nah, I think we're going stay home today,' without even having to do much. It was well received by the hunters here." Photo credit: Michael Tuzroyluk
Tracking Warm Sea Temperatures - Is it a Marine Heatwave?
The NVS Climatology app allows visualization of current and historical data to see how different conditions are. Dynamic plotting enables users to explore year-to-year differences for a variety of data sets including water temperature and wave height. This function makes it easy to compare recent marine heat waves or to compare current data to other years, as well as the long term average. Click to expand the plot, then highlight any year in red by clicking the bubble next to the year. See the guide on how to track anomalies and follow the Tracker to see if a heat anomaly is a marine heatwave.
NANOOS is excited to announce a new feature in NVS which allows users to "customize" the information presented. Set up the map view to display the region, the asset or model overlay, etc. that you are interested in, then select the “Snapshot” tool to create a link that stores this information. You can then share or visit this link at any time to access data with these specifications. Log in to your NANOOS user account to save your Snapshots links.
