Jay Austin, associate professor of physics from the University of Minnesota Duluth’s Large Lakes Observatory and a Lake Superior water temperature watcher, sent us a few “snapshots” of water-temperature data from the buoys north of Michigan. “They use data from offshore buoys operated by NOAA,” Jay explains the charts. “They show this year (in red), the long term average (in blue) and the observed range over the last 30+ years (in gray). As you can see, we're very near record temps, and we probably have another 2-3 weeks of warming to go.”
The buoys are placed around Lake Superior. You can log onto a buoy map that lets you see current data at www.ndbc.noaa.gov/maps/WestGL.shtml.