Water Resources of Michigan

Visualization of a Drifting Buoy Deployment on Lake St. Clair within the Great Lakes Waterway from August 12-15, 2002

US Geological Survey Open-File Report 02-482

Prepared in cooperation with the
SOURCE WATER ASSESSMENT PROGRAM OF THE MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY, DETROIT WATER AND SEWERAGE DEPARTMENT, and the AMERICAN WATER WORKS ASSOCIATION RESEARCH FOUNDATION

Lansing, Michigan
December 2002

Accessible Web version is available in Web (HTML) format at:
http://mi.water.usgs.gov/pubs/OF/OF02-482/DriftingBuoyLSC.php

Contents

• Abstract
  
• Introduction
  
  • Location
    
  • Purpose and Scope
    
  • Investigations
    
  • Acknowledgements
    
• Methods
  
  • Buoy and Drogue Characteristics
    
  • Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler Survey of Lake St. Clair
    
  • Ancillary Data
    
    • Water Levels
      
    • Flows
      
    • Winds
      
• Results
  
  • Drifting Buoy Deployment
    
  • ADCP Velocity Survey
    
  • Visualization
    
• Summary
  
• References Cited
  

Animation

Lake St. Clair ADCP Survey and Buoy Deployment

FIGURES
Maps showing:
1. Study area showing Lake St. Clair in the Great Lakes Waterway.
2. Locations of gaging stations and streams tributary to Lake St. Clair.
3. Transect of drifting buoys on the navigational channel of Lake St. Clair
4. Drifting buoys and drogues deployed on Lake St. Clair
5. An R.D. Instruments, Inc., 600-kilohertz Workhorse "Rio Grande" acoustic Doppler current profiler.
6. ADCP fastened between floats of a small pontoon and tethered to a boat for velocity measurements.
7. ADCP mounted between pontoons on raft.
8. Temporal average ADCP velocities with depth for grid point D6 on Lake St. Clair.
9. Water levels during the buoy deployment on Lake St. Clair in the Great Lakes Waterway.
10. Flow schematic for St. Clair River and Lake St. Clair from August 12-15, 2002.
11. Lake St. Clair weather station LSCM4, which is mounted on Lake St. Clair Light
12. Wind conditions on Lake St. Clair from August 12-15, 2002.
13. Variation of water speed with depth at ADCP grid points on Lake St. Clair.
14. Variation of water direction with depth at ADCP grid points on Lake St. Clair.
Tables
1. Measured locations of ADCP grid points and ADCP file names.
2. Distribution of water velocities by depth measured using an ADCP at 0.4 second intervals near grid point D6 on Lake St. Clair from August 12, 2002 at 12:17 to 12:31 EDT (Eastern Daylight Time).
Appendix A
Configuration file for ADCP velocity profiles on Lake St. Clair.

Citation:

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