The first thing IISG Assistant Research Coordinator Carolyn Foley does each morning is feed her kids. Then, while toast is toasting or oatmeal is warming up, she checks the IISG real-time buoys.

“Jayson Beugly, Angela Archer, and I all monitor the buoys to make sure they’re transmitting OK,” Foley said. “But I also look for cool things that are being captured.”

Foley shares these “cool things” via the @TwoYellowBuoys Twitter feed that was conceived during a 2015 IISG staff meeting.

Toast&Coffee

“Jay and I were sitting next to each other during a talk about engaging with social media,” Foley recalled. “He turned to me and said, ‘We should make a Twitter account for the buoys.’ And we both began to laugh.”

Carolyn admits she didn’t know much about Twitter before starting @TwoYellowBuoys, but it seemed like a great platform for communicating the graphs and images constantly generated by the buoys.

“I think visually, and my favorite part of writing scientific manuscripts is putting together graphs in order to tell a story. I hope that seeing how the data illustrate trends and phenomena helps people better understand how scientists use the data to answer complex questions,” said Foley.

“And it doesn’t hurt that looking at the webcam pictures reminds me why I do what I do, especially when I haven’t been able to get near the water lately.”

IISG owns and operates two nearshore buoys in Lake Michigan, one in Michigan City, Indiana and another in Willmette, Illinois. The weather buoys serve a variety of audiences, from the National Weather Service to recreational water users. Data from the buoys, including information on water temperature, wind speed, wave height, solar radiation, and more, is transmitted every 10 minutes.

Foley is especially partial to posting thermocline data on Twitter because she knows anglers make decisions based on  water temperature.

The buoy dashboards provide this data in both numerical and graphical form, and users can even access historic data. In addition, webcam images are captured every hour during daylight hours and shared online.

Using @TwoYellowBuoys, Foley has featured local and Lake Michigan-wide comparisons of water temperatures, air temperatures, wave heights, wind speeds, and more. She also pulls together images from the webcams atop the buoys to share with followers.

Option4

“It’s not up to us to predict what’s going to happen—the National Weather Service and others use the data for that purpose,” said Foley.

“But to be able to visualize what has happened and link it to real things that people have experienced, like storms or temperature shifts, is really fun and hopefully neat for people to see and understand.”


Carolyn Foley and Abigail Bobrow also contributed to the story. Joel Davenport created the illustrations.

Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant is a part of University of Illinois Extension and Purdue Extension.

 

IISG Instagram

Four science educators from Illinois and Indiana have been selected for the 2025 Shipboard Science Immersion on Lake Michigan July 7-13. The educators will spend a full week alongside researchers aboard the EPA research vessel Lake Guardian. Afterwards, they will bring Great Lakes science back to their classroom. Learn more and meet the four incredible teachers representing Illinois and Indiana at the link in bio.
🌿 Educators—Explore Restoration in Action! Join us Thursday, July 31 at Purdue Northwest (Hammond, IN) for a FREE full-day workshop diving into the transformation of the Grand Calumet River Area of Concern.🚍 Tour restored sites🧠 Engage with VR curriculum📚 Earn 6 PD hours🥐 Breakfast & lunch included🔗 Register now at the link in bio and bring real-world science to your classroom.Register by July 21st.
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Big news from Illinois‑Indiana Sea Grant! We’re thrilled to announce Dr. Stuart Carlton, our Assistant Director since 2018, will step into the Director role on July 14, 2025. Join us in congratulating Stuart, and read on at the link in bio to find out more about the transition!
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