Clatsop Spit CDIP Buoy Data Online
November 19th, 2009
As mid-November reels us with Pacific storms, many of us look ahead to our first taste of fresh Dungeness crab during the holiday season. The traditional season for Washington and Oregon Dungeness crab begins December 1. That is why it’s important to be reminded that, due respect for the Bering Sea crab fishery notwithstanding, the Dungeness crab fishery off the mouth of the Columbia River truly is America’s deadliest catch.
Many Columbia River gillnetters also participate in crabbing off our shores during the worst part of winter. This is probably a good time to celebrate an important technological advance, which ought to provide local crab fishermen with much improved real-time data on wave conditions off the mouth of the Columbia River this season. It is called the Clatsop Spit CDIP buoy.
CDIP stands for Coastal Data Information Program. CDIP buoys are relatively small but rugged buoys, which are designed to gather data on wave height, period, and direction. Unlike the much more massive weather buoys deployed by NOAA along our shores, CDIP buoys have a strong track record of staying on station through all kinds of weather. NOAA’s Columbia River weather buoys, on the other hand, often have been blown far off station or rendered inoperable during the height of crab season, leaving Columbia River crabbers dangerously vulnerable when they most need to know weather and wave conditions at sea. (See Newly installed buoy crashes, by Cassandra Profita of the Daily Astorian.) Because the CDIP buoy is small, if blown off station it can be retrieved and redeployed by a fishing boat. The Columbia River Crab Fishermen’s Association has volunteered to be on call to retrieve the buoy if needed.
Dale Beasley, President of the Columbia River Crab Fishermen’s Association provided a link to the NOAA website, where data from the Clatsop Spite CDIP buoy is presented in an easy to read format:
http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=46243
The CDIP program is managed by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego. Data from the Clatsop Spit CDIP buoy can also be accessed on the Scripps website, where one also can read the article by Deeda Schroeder about deploying the CDIP buoy (published in the Daily Astorian on October 5, 2009), listen to Joanne Rideout’s report on the Columbia River Ship Report (broadcast on KMUN Coast Community Radio, September 24, 2009), or scroll through photos of the buoy being deployed by the Tongue Pt. Job Corps Center’s Seamanship Program aboard the decommissioned buoy tender Ironwood.
Clatsop Spit CDIP on Scripps website
