Occasionally we send out a small e-mail newsletter listing major additions to this website, and detailing the QA/QC changes to posted data. Sign-up here if you would like to be added to (or removed from) our list of recipients.

NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE

RUSS STATUS REPORT 11/24/03

We are in the process of migrating all of wow.nrri.umn.edu to our new website waterontheweb.org.

March 23, 2004
Thanks to National Advisory Team member Earl Byron in California for bringing the following to our attention:

Posted on Sun, Mar. 14, 2004 in the San Jose Mercury (California) News from the Associated Press.

SoCal city falls victim to Internet hoax, considers banning items made with water. This article went on to report that well meaning officials in the City of Aliso Viejo, California were considering banning foam cups after they learned that the chemical dihydrogen monoxide was used in their production. Although there may be other reasons to consider such a measure, and although the chemical is odorless and tasteless and can be deadly if accidentally inhaled, it is also essential to life on earth and the major reason for the current explorations of Mars. They should have been subscribing to the WOW Newsletter.

November 24, 2003
The second WOW teacher workshop was held at SUNY Stone Ridge, NY on Nov 14th and 15th. Check out the workshop highlights (links to waterontheweb.org).

November 7, 2003
All of the Minnesota Lake and the St Louis River RUSS units have been removed for the winter. The DuluthStreams stream monitoring units are still up and running.

October 20, 2003
The first WOW teacher training workshop was held in Wilmington, North Carolina on Oct 9th and 10th. Check out the workshop highlights (links to waterontheweb.org).

October 13, 2003
We have decided to remove the Ice Lake RUSS this week because the unit needs repairs. We will be taking biweekly manual profiles until the lake freezes. The Shagawa unit is still up and running, though the dissolved oxygen sensor is reading low. We'll try and keep this unit out as long as possible.

September 30 , 2003
Winter is trying to make a comeback in Ely, MN. Here's what it looked like on a recent maintenance visit (links to waterontheweb.org).

August 28, 2003
New DVTs: Check out the new stream data vizualization tools (opens a new page) on DuluthStreams. The St. Louis River data is also now available in the DVT format.

July 7, 2003
WOW is offering a series of introductory workshops for instructors this fall. To find out more download the brochure (3.6 M PDF file) or click here for a text only version. The on-line registration form is here.

July 3, 2003
The St Louis River RUSS is finally back up and running. The data will be posted shortly.

June 16, 2003
The Medicine Lake unit was deployed 6/12/03.

May 9, 2003
The Shagawa lake unit (Ely, MN) was deployed this week. The ice went out around 5/1/03.

April 24, 2003
The ice went out on Ice Lake (Grand Rapids, MN) around 4/17/03. The RUSS unit was deployed yesterday and data should be available later today.

April 22, 2003
Happy Earth Day!

April 2, 2003
The ice is still thick on Northern Minnesota lakes. Ice Lake was sampled last week and the ice was 2 feet thick. Shagawa will be sampled this week.

March 7, 2003
Lake Superior has the most ice in years but probably won't freeze entirely, ice experts said Wednesday."I don't think it's going to happen," said Craig Evanego, an ice forecaster with the National Ice Center in Washington. "It will come close, but it won't be shore to shore over the whole lake."Still, the lake has the most ice since 1997 and is the closest to freezing over since ice covered the lake in February 1994. (March 6, 2003, Duluth News-Tribune, MN).
The Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) has a series of images showing how the ice cover has grown during the past week's record cold.

March 4, 2003
A mystery has been solved. The mysterious hole in the ice that showed up this past winter in North Long Lake near Brainerd, MN was formed by upwelling groundwater. Check out the "Lake Detective" for an explanation.

January 27, 2003
WOW will be evolving in 2003! To see what's going to change click here.

January 22, 2003
GreenWorks TV did some filming in Minneapolis last summer of the Medicine Lake lawn fertilizer experiment. An information page is now available on their site and the movie will be up soon.

Check out the Duluth Streams web site. This project focuses on urban streams and stormwater issues in Duluth, MN. As in WOW, Duluth Streams has a real-time data emphasis, with 3 stream monitoring stations deployed in three trout streams.

December 16, 2002
Manual winter profiles have been taken for Ice (12/16) and Shagawa Lakes (12/10).

October 14, 2002
It's that time of year again here in Minnesota. We will be removing the Shagawa unit on 10/16. Hopefully the Ice Lake unit will remain on the water until the week of 11/4.

September 9, 2002
The Halsteds Bay unit on Lake Minnetonka is currently off-line. The unit will most likely be down for a couple of weeks.

August 22, 2002
Check out the latest WOW newsletter.

June 24, 2002
Both the Medicine Lake and Halsteds Bay units are up and running.

June 20, 2002
We have just received a new Hydrolab Mini-Sonde with a Turner Designs SCUFA chlorophyll sensor. This sonde will be placed on the Shagawa unit next week replacing the older YSI 6820 sonde that needs new DO and pH probes.

June 5, 2002
Need an expert to asnwer your question? You can always ask one of us but there are lots of experts out there. Try the On-Line Experts site.

June 3, 2002
Data from the St Louis River can now be viewed in HTML and EXCEL formats found on the current data page. We are still working on linking the water quality data with USGS discharge data and the data visualization tools.

May 30, 2002
Check out the Website http://www.eco.org for information about the Environmental Careers Organization. In particular click the blue box on the home page that is labeled Career Feature for May 2002: Water Quality Management for a wealth of information about careers and opportunities in this area.

The Great North American Secchi Dip-In is now in its 9th Year! June 29 ­ July 14.

May 03, 2002
The Shagawa unit was deployed yesterday. There is now a chlorophyll probe on the YSI sonde instead of a turbidity probe. We still need to work on reporting these data so you won't be able to see these data in the DVTs until those issues are resolved. In the mean time we will try to post graphs showing the chlorophyll data. Also, the conductivity is currently being reported in miliSiemens not microSiemens. This results in the data being automatically rejected by initial QA screening. The pH probe is reading low as well. We will fix these problems as soon as we can.

April 30, 2002
RUSS units are being deployed. We put out the St Louis River unit last week. We are receiving data every three hours but because of difficulties we're having with the data logger you will not be able to view the data until we reformat the data for viewing.

The Ice Lake unit is up and running as of today. The data has been posted.

April 26, 2002
Ice out dates: Ice Lake 4/17/02, Lake Minnetonka 4/16/02, and Lake Independence 4/15/02. The ice on Shagawa is expected to go out any day. We will begin deploying units next week.

April 12, 2002
Every Monday the Minnesota DNR will be updating ice-out conditions across the state.

April 10, 2002
Chemistry data and manual profiles for Medicine and Shagawa Lakes have been added. This includes historical data too. We are working on updating chemistry data for all of the WOW lakes.

Want to know how to determine dissolved oxygen as % saturation in your lake? We've added something new to the dissolved oxygen section.

March 29, 2002
We had a WOW server emergency yesterday afternoon so that was why the site was down temporarily.

March 27, 2002
Winter finally decided to come to Minnesota this month. James Johnson of Hennepin Parks sampled the Minneapolis area lakes yesterday and there was 18 inces of ice (data to be posted soon). When Shagawa Lake (way up north in Ely) was last sampled it had over 25 inches of ice.

March 19, 2002
You can now revisit WOW news by visiting the Newsletter page.

March 14, 2002
Shagawa Lake was sampled yesterday. For the profile data open this EXCEL file.

February 21, 2002
Ice Lake was just sampled yesterday. For the profile data open this EXCEL file.

February 6, 2002
Shagawa Lake was sampled yesterday. For the profile data open this EXCEL file.

January 31, 2002
Grindstone Lake was sampled today. For the profile open this EXCEL file.

January 24, 2002
Ice Lake was sampled last week on 1/16. For the profile data open this EXCEL file.

We have decided not to put out any RUSS units this winter. Although the WOW lakes have frozen over, this winter has been unusually mild and ice conditions are not ideal. We will try and get out to each lake a few times to collect manual temperature, DO, and conductivity profiles.

January 9, 2002
Shagawa Lake was sampled yesterday. For the profile data open this EXCEL file.

January 4, 2002
Is it getting warmer and wetter in Grand Rapids, MN (home of Ice Lake)? Check out the yearly averages of temperature and precipitation since 1915. This weather data has been collected and compiled by the Forestry Sciences Lab at the USDA North Central Research Station in Grand Rapids.

December 11, 2001
Former WOW collaborator Harry Hutchens at Itasca Community College reported on KAXE radio that Ice Lake froze over December 10. Ice Lake completed its fall turnover on October 29 and the RUSS unit was removed from the lake on Nov 8th.

December 4, 2001
All of the units are off the water.

November 26, 2001
We have installed a unit in the Duluth Ship canal and are working on getting the data up on the website. To see how what the installation looks like go here.

November 13, 2001
The Shagawa, Ice, and Grindstone units are tucked away for the winter. The Medicine and Halsteds Bay units are still deployed but will be removed within the next week or so.

September 27, 2001

A few pictures of the Shagawa Lake deployment are now available.

September 19, 2001

Grindstone unit: should be back up tomorrow (9/20).
Ice Lake unit: We temporarily cut back the number of profiles per day to two; 6 am and 6 pm. This unit has a small solar panel and the sun hasn't shone in Grand Rapids for a number of days.

August 21, 2001

We have all five units up and running.

August 17, 2001

The Shagawa unit (Ely, MN) has been deployed though we are having some communication difficulties.

July 10, 2001

Water on the Web receives the Exploratorium's Ten Cool Sites Award for educational excellence for July 2001.

July 6, 2001

The Grindstone Lake unit is up and running.

May 18, 2001

Great North American Secchi Dip-In 2001
Programs and Volunteers Needed!
Contribute to a Snapshot of North American Water Quality
June 30 - July 15, 2001

To participate, enroll your program at their Website
(http://dipin.kent.edu). All volunteers in your program will receive a
summary of the Dip-In 2000, whether or not they participated in the 2000
event.

May 15, 2001

Check out the "Notes" page for photos of the WOW lakes and to see how we get the RUSS units on and off the lakes.

May 3, 2001

The Ice Lake unit is up and running. Did the lake turn over yet? To find out you'll need to go to the Data section. Also, check out photos from the deployment.

May 1, 2001

The ice went off Ice Lake last Friday, 4/27, so we're heading out tomorrow to deploy the RUSS unit. If all goes well we'll have new data by 5/3. The Lake Minnetonka units will also be deployed this week. There will not be a unit on Lake Independence this year. We have a new lake and an experiment planned for the LakeAccess II project.

March 30 , 2001

Ice-Out watch: the Minnesota Climatology Working Group has a web page showing average ice out dates for a number of Minnesota lakes.

March 2 , 2001

We now provide the Limnology Primer and RUSS Parameters in both HTML and PDF formats. We hope the PDF files will make it much easier for you to download and print these sections.

February 22 , 2001

Winter profiles have been added for Ice, Grindstone, Independence, and West Upper.

February 8 , 2001

A new map showing water quality for lakes across Minesota has just come out. The map gives both a trophic state index and secchi depth average: pick either the small version (for printing) or large version (for more detail). Go to the LakeBrowser to find your favorite Minnesota Lake.

Also, the MN DNR has a new article that should concern us all. Increased development in the Twin Cities Metro area may be having an impact on fishing in the area. Take a look at "The road to poor fishing".

January 24, 2001

In case you haven't noticed we haven't received any RUSS data since the units were removed last November. The units will not be placed on the ice this winter. We will however, be collecting manual profiles periodically and these will be posted on the site. We hope to be able to get the units out again this spring.

If you really miss any of the older "What's New" entries don't despair. Go to the What's Old Archive to visit any old friends.