Friday, April 30, 2004

Loading R/V Cape Hatteras and R/V Connecticut.

Sat. May 1, 2004

R/V Cape Hatteras shake down cruise. COOL Room crew & family on R/V Hatteras. R/V Connecticut loading continues during the day.

Both R/V Hatteras and R/V Connecticut left port at night around 8PM EST.

RU03 Glider not operating normally, getting only ARGOS hits. :-(

RU02 Glider sent to complete RU03's mission, details to follow.

Sun. May 2, 2004

First dye injection at 9 AM!

R/V Cape Hatteras is doing an amazing tracking of the dye, we have the dye nailed on the nose of the plume.

R/V Connecticut is doing water sampling of the dye and have sent back some samples via SeaTow.

RU02 now MIA, we are working to figure out what happened.

Mon. May 3, 2004

John and Josh might have found the culprit that's causing communication problem with RU02 and RU03 in the early (very early!) morning hours.

Glider RU03 recovered by R/V Connecticut! ARGOS position was spot on. RU02 still MIA

R/V Cape Hatteras will continue to survey the plume off the Long Island coast. They will head back in the evening to survey the other plume off Sandy Hook to prepare for dye injection tomorrow morning.

Tue. May 4, 2004

The second dye injection took place at 9:30 AM in the morning. Scott took some great video and picture of the plume from the air.

Liz and Chip deployed glider RU01 in the LaTTE region in the morning. They also fixed RU03 and redeployed RU03 for a new mission. Turn around time for RU03: 15 min!!!

The downwelling wind will become upwelling over night then switch back, so nature will pose us some exciting challenges over the next few days.

Clear sky, that means...awesome satellite images! Be sure to check out the satellite page.

Wed. May 5, 2004

R/V Cape Hatteras continues to track the dye, now 6km by 10km large. The overnight wind shift broadened the dye patch rapidly.

A video of the helicapter fly by of R/V Cape Hatteras and R/V Connecticut was made, take a look at http://marine.rutgers.edu/cool/video/.

Last water pickup from the Connecticut and they are leaving for their home port at Groton, CT tonight.

R/V Hatteras will continue to track the dye until it completely dissipates.

Thu. May 6, 2004

The dye has dissipated in the morning, R/V Hatteras comes back up to the Sandy Hook area to survey the next fresh water plume briefly before heading back to Miller's Launch.

The two gliders will continue to track the plume while one heads down to Tuckerton and the other head to the continental shelf.

NOAA research ship will continue surveying the next fresh water plume until Friday.

Fri. May 7, 2004

Civil Air Patrol is called into action to find our MIA glider, RU02. Details will follow.

The main part of the experiment is over for this year, but we are already starting preparing for next year's LaTTE. We have collected an amazing set of data and the experiment is a resounding success! This is only the first year of the five year LaTTE project, stay tuned for more actions next year and our new findings!