2012 Drifter Tracks
resolving transport pathways through New England's estuarine and continental shelf waters and beyond

updated every two hours

[Note: Not many drifters funded this year as of yet]

To see a GoogleMap of just this week's tracks, click here.
To see a GoogleMap of all 2011 tracks, click here.
To see this week's tracks overlaid on other fields (sst, models, etc), go here and click on "Drifter" layer.
To see description of the drifter construction and technology, click here.
To blog about students deploying drifters with our MATE colleagues, click here.
To see various drifter-project descriptions, click here.
To see drifter newsletters, click here.
To see plots of this year's tracks, see links in table below.
To download raw data of drifters underway, click here.
To see raw statistics click here.
To download tracks stored in historical database, click here.
To calculate and reserve a "deployment id", click here.
To document a drifter deployment, click here.
To document a drifter recovery, click here.

To see last year's webpage, click here.
To get PYTHON and/or MATLAB processing routines, email james.manning@noaa.gov for the latest versions.

Get the Flash Player to see this animation.


To see information on individual clusters, click the links in the following cronological table


Institution
(data)		 Deployer
(cruise report)		 Date Deployed
(animation)		 Dropsite
 #units Science
 Status
(customized googlemap)		 Fate
(photo)
CFCCShaw 27 Sep 2011 Gulf Stream 1MATE educationaldone rode the Gulf Stream, turned south, approached Bermuda, and died on St Patrick's Day 2012
CFCCShaw 12 Oct 2011 Gulf Stream 1MATE educationaldone rode the Gulf Stream fast, stalled, and died 8 March 2012
URI/GSOKincaid/Pfeiffer 12 Oct 2011 Block Island Sound 6shelf processes done all blown east 14-16 Oct. Four washed up on the Vineyard (a few recovered by Keston Smith and Sidney Morris). One circumnavigated the Vineyard, reentered coastal current, went past Grand Banks, and died in March 2012
SMCCLong/Tarbox 10 Nov 2011 Casco Bay 1educational done NE Peak of Georges Bank in January, Grand Banks by March, and died on 6 May 2012
NOAA/NEFSCRichardson/Prezioso 13 Nov 2011 Georges Bank 3Herring Larvae done stalled a week, accelerated, entrained in ring, all dead by late March 2012
Canterbury School of Florida Marine StuduesCummings 14 Mar 2012 West Florida Shelf 1MATE educational done headed NW and died in mid-May
Stellwagen Bank SanctuaryRunfula/Stanitski17 Apr 2012 Mass Bay 2educational underway surface drifter possibly damaged in Boston shipping lane, ADP drogued drifter fine
UMASS BostonGardner 19 Apr 2012 Apalachee Bay 3educational done headed east-southeast (opposite to last year's drift) and came ashore on 26 April
NOAA/Educational PassagesKocik/Music 02 May 2012 Gulf of Maine 2salmon done boats under sail one recovered ashore on Scrags Island (11 May) by Swan's Island Harbormaster and the other recovered ashore on Isle au Haut (16 May) by lobsterman, Greg Runge
Educational PassagesBaldwin12 May 2012 Gulf Stream 5educational underway boats under sail
Penn State/GLERLBoughton/Shwab 07 May 2012 Lake Erie 3educational/science underway one died after 2 days, the other ...
MPC/MBARIHochstaedter/Ryan May 2012 off Monteray CA 1educational/OOS planned
NOAA Teachers at SeaAnnetta/Haas/Smolowitz May 2012 Mid-Atlantic Bight 3educational/turtles planned
SMCCLong/Tarbox June 2012 Casco Bay 2educationalplanned
UNH-CMBGoldstein/Watson June 2012 Great Bay 2lobstersplanned
GLERLMcCormick June 2012 Lake Michigan & Huron 3exchange processesplanned
NOAA/PISCMansfeild Sep 2012 Brazil 6turtlesplanned




Note: Most units are prepared by marine science students at the Southern Maine Community College. The majority are standard "surface drifters" marking only the top 1-meter of the water column, but some units, as in the case of EP boats, track the wind and wave at the surface and some have 6m by 0.6m subsurface drogues centered at 15m below the surface. For details, call 508-495-2211 or email james.manning@noaa.gov.