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NDBC station · fixed platform

Station 45006: West Superior

30NM NE of Outer Island, WI. 47.335°N 89.793°W · Lake Superior from Saxon Harbor WI to Upper Entrance to Portage Canal MI 5NM off shore to the US/Canadian border including Isle Royale National Park

GOon wind and seas, for a typical 25 to 35 ft center console.
Wind
ESE 4 kt, gusting 6
Seas
1.6 ft at 4 s
Water
60°F
Air
60°F
Pressure
1013.5 mb, falling

Reported 28 min ago · National Data Buoy Center, station 45006

A buoy reading is not a go/no-go

45006 measures the water. It does not know your boat. Fifteen knots and three feet is a pleasant afternoon on one hull and a beating on another, and the difference is the two or three numbers you already carry in your head. GoNoGo Weather scores this station and the forecast around it against your own limits and gives you one straight answer, with the hour it changes.

Score 45006 against YOUR boat

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How to read station 45006

This is a fixed station: a platform or a shore mast. It reports wind, pressure and temperature reliably and usually carries no wave sensor, so seas here come from the model rather than from an instrument.

Period matters as much as height. Four feet at ten seconds is a long, easy swell; four feet at four seconds is a short steep chop that stops a boat. Wind against tide steepens everything, and a buoy cannot see that from where it floats. Age matters too: stations go quiet, and a reading that has not updated in three hours is history rather than weather.

This station sits in the NWS marine zone Lake Superior from Saxon Harbor WI to Upper Entrance to Portage Canal MI 5NM off shore to the US/Canadian border including Isle Royale National Park (LSZ263), which is the forecast we read alongside it.

This is a read of official forecasts and observations, not a guarantee. You know your boat and your crew. The call is yours.