What the water is doing near Wood Island in Saco Bay, Maine · BlueSonde BB1.23
🕒 Latest reading: Wednesday, Oct 21 2026 at 07:02 PM. How salty is it? The salinity scale (fresh water from rain, streams or rivers lowers it):
This buoy is highlighted in orange. The others are UNE's nearby wave buoys (yellow) and water-quality buoys (orange floats) — hover over one for its name, click to visit its page.
Predicted by NOAA for Camp Ellis, Saco River entrance (station 8418606). Heights are above average low tide (MLLW).
Big-picture numbers from every reading so far.
Written automatically from the numbers — it changes as new data arrives.
On average the water is saltiest about 3.0 h after high tide (33.1 PSU) and freshest about 4.0 h before high tide (31.0 PSU), when the falling tide carries fresher water from closer to shore past the buoy.
Recorded Sep 30 at 9:12 AM. Typical salinity is 32.9 PSU (full seawater is about 32–35). Sharp dips usually follow heavy rain, when streams and runoff carry fresh water out to the buoy.
Average water temperature this past week was 12.9 °C (55 °F), versus 13.5 °C (56 °F) the week before. Warmest so far: 17.3 °C on Sep 12; coldest 12.2 °C on Oct 18.
Dissolved oxygen averaged 8.6 mg/L and never went below 7.3 mg/L (lowest Oct 8 at 5:32 AM). Below 5 mg/L many fish start to feel stressed; below 2 mg/L (hypoxia) most can't stay.
Algae add oxygen in daylight and everything uses it up at night. On a typical day oxygen saturation swings by about 11 percentage points, peaking around 6 PM.
Chlorophyll is a stand-in for how much floating algae (phytoplankton) is in the water. Typical here: 2.3 µg/L; highest Sep 14 at 6:33 AM. Readings above ~10 µg/L in coastal water usually mean a bloom.
Turbidity measures how cloudy the water is. Under ~5 NTU is clear coastal water; spikes (highest Oct 8 at 1:47 AM) come from storms stirring up sediment, runoff after rain, or now and then something drifting past the sensor.
A quick guide to each measurement on this page — no science degree needed.
What it is: How warm or cold the water is, measured by a sensor just below the surface.
Why it matters: Temperature controls almost everything in the water: how much oxygen it can hold, how fast algae grow, which fish and shellfish are comfortable, and when lobsters and other animals move or molt.
📏 Gulf of Maine coastal water runs roughly 38–45 °F (3–7 °C) in late winter and 60–68 °F (15–20 °C) in late summer. Shallow ponds and marshes swing much more, warming fast on sunny days.
📍 Here: typically 56 °F (13.3 °C); 54–63 °F so far.
What it is: The amount of dissolved salt in the water, in PSU (practical salinity units) — about the same as grams of salt per kilogram of water.
Why it matters: Saltiness tells you where the water came from. Fresh water from rain, streams, rivers or groundwater lowers it; ocean water raises it. Many plants and animals can only live within a certain salt range.
📏 Drinking water ≈ 0. Brackish (mixed) water ≈ 5–18. Open Gulf of Maine ≈ 31–33. Sudden drops usually follow heavy rain.
📍 Here: typically 32.9 PSU; lowest so far 25.9, highest 33.7.
What it is: Oxygen gas dissolved in the water — the oxygen that fish, crabs, clams and worms breathe through their gills or skin. Shown in mg/L (milligrams per litre), and sometimes as % saturation: 100% means the water holds as much oxygen as it naturally can at that temperature and saltiness.
Why it matters: Low oxygen stresses or kills marine life. It drops when water is warm, still, or full of decaying plant material, and it swings up and down every day because algae make oxygen in sunlight and everything uses it up at night.
📏 Above 5 mg/L: healthy. 2–5 mg/L: stressful for many species. Below 2 mg/L: hypoxic — most fish leave or die. Saturation above 100% means algae are photosynthesising hard.
📍 Here: averages 8.6 mg/L; lowest so far 7.3 mg/L.
What it is: The green pigment inside microscopic floating algae (phytoplankton). The sensor shines blue light into the water and measures how much the chlorophyll glows back. Units: µg/L (micrograms per litre).
Why it matters: Phytoplankton are the base of the ocean food web — and they make about half of the oxygen on Earth. Too much, though, can mean a bloom that later uses up oxygen as it decays, and a few kinds of algae are toxic.
📏 Under ~2 µg/L: clear, low-algae water. 2–10: normal coastal levels. Above ~10: bloom conditions.
📍 Here: typically 2.3 µg/L; highest so far 18.2.
What it is: How cloudy the water is, from mud, sand, algae or other particles. The sensor measures how much light scatters off them, in NTU (nephelometric turbidity units).
Why it matters: Cloudy water blocks sunlight from reaching seagrass and seaweed, can clog the gills of shellfish, and often carries pollutants stirred up by storms or washed off the land.
📏 Under ~5 NTU: clear. 5–20: a little cloudy. 20–100: murky (storm waves, runoff). Single sharp spikes are often something drifting past the sensor.
📍 Here: typically 0.7 NTU.
What it is: How easily electricity passes through the water. Dissolved salt carries the current, so conductivity is how the sensor measures salinity. "Specific" conductivity is adjusted to 25 °C so readings can be compared.
Why it matters: It is the raw measurement behind the salinity number, and a quick check that the sensor is underwater — it drops to about zero in air.
📏 Seawater ≈ 50,000 µS/cm (50 mS/cm). Fresh river water ≈ 50–500 µS/cm.
📍 Here: typically 50.3 mS/cm.
What it is: The height of the water surface. Along the Maine coast the sea rises and falls about 9 feet twice a day (every ~12 h 25 min), pulled by the Moon and Sun.
Why it matters: The tide moves water — and everything in it — back and forth past a sensor, so many readings change with the tide. In marshes and ponds, water level shows how often the tide floods in and how high storms push it.
📏 Heights on tide charts are measured above average low tide (MLLW). Storms and strong onshore winds can push water higher than predicted.
All the measurements on one shared timeline, with the tide on top. Use the buttons to zoom to the last day, week or month, or drag across any panel. Dashed lines on the oxygen panel mark the 5 mg/L stress and 2 mg/L hypoxia levels.
Each line is the typical value (the median) across every tide so far, lined up by hours before (−) and after (+) high tide; the shaded band holds the middle half of readings. The rising tide brings in ocean water; the falling tide carries water from closer to shore back past the buoy.
High-tide times from NOAA predictions for station 8418606 (Camp Ellis, Saco River entrance).
The typical value (median) for each hour of the day, with the middle half of readings shaded. Algae make oxygen in sunlight and everything uses it up overnight; the water warms through the afternoon; and chlorophyll readings dip at midday when bright sun makes the algae glow less.
Each square is one day. Pick what to colour by. Blank squares = no data.
Averages, lows and highs for each month (newest first).
| Month | Days | Temp avg | Temp low | Temp high | Salinity avg | Salinity low | Oxygen avg (mg/L) | Oxygen low | Chlorophyll avg (µg/L) | Chl. high | Turbidity avg (NTU) | Turb. high |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 2026 | 21/31 | 56.1 °F | 54.0 °F | 61.7 °F | 32.5 | 26.1 | 8.4 | 7.3 | 2.62 | 11.9 | 0.9 | 191 |
| Sep 2026 | 15/30 | 60.0 °F | 57.8 °F | 63.2 °F | 32.2 | 25.9 | 9.1 | 8.1 | 3.16 | 18.2 | 1.2 | 28 |
Power and conditions inside the hull, hourly. The voltage channel drops to 0 every night and climbs with the sun, so it looks like solar-charge input. Humidity creeping upward can mean moisture is getting in.
=IMPORTDATA("https://ekelting.github.io/UNE-Marine-Monitoring-Network/wood-island/data/daily.csv")