There’s a chill in the air, and with an eye toward keeping CBIBS buoys safe from ice damage, several of the northernmost CBIBS buoys will be pulled for the 2015-16 winter and redeployed in early spring.
The buoys—Susquehanna, Patapsco, Annapolis, and Upper Potomac—will be pulled and replaced with “ice buoys,” which are weather-hardy placeholder buoys, for over the winter. The CBIBS team will work with partners at the U.S. Coast Guard and NOAA Corps to safely retrieve the CBIBS buoys. The Susquehanna buoy was removed on December 2; the remaining buoys will be pulled over the next few weeks.
Over the winter, NOAA will keep an eye on water temperatures and weather forecast trends to monitor other buoys in the CBIBS system. Once the waters warm in 2016, the buoys will be redeployed.