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NDBC station · buoy

Buoy 45207: Mentor Harbor Buoy

41.731°N 81.367°W · Willowick to Geneva-on-the Lake OH

GOon wind and seas, for a typical 25 to 35 ft center console.
Wind
ENE 4 kt, gusting 6
Seas
0.7 ft
Water
77°F
Air
76°F

Reported 27 min ago · National Data Buoy Center, station 45207

A buoy reading is not a go/no-go

45207 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 45207 against YOUR boat

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How to read station 45207

This is a floating buoy, so its seas are measured rather than modeled. Significant wave height is the average of the highest third of the waves, which means roughly one wave in ten is noticeably bigger than the number, and the largest in an hour can be close to twice it.

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 Willowick to Geneva-on-the Lake OH (LEZ147), 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.