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.

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.