2020 Drifter Tracks
Resolving transport pathways through New England's continental shelf waters and beyond
updated every two hoursSee a GoogleMap of just this month's tracks.
See an animation of tracks.
Download drifter construction manuals and lesson plans
Find out how to get involved with the project
Predict where a drifter will go (not maintained in 2020)
To see this weeks's tracks overlaid on other fields (sst, models, etc), go to the
MARACOOS OCEANSMAP site
Access the historical drifter data.
Read about drifters in the news (no longer maintained)
Get information on a related unmanned sailboat project
Plots of this year's tracks are linked in the table below.
Get raw statistics.
Check on your satellite fix use.
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Drifter tracks from in previous years:
2005 |
2006 |
2007 |
2008 |
2009 |
2010 |
2011 |
2012 |
2013 |
2014 |
2015 |
2016 |
2017 |
2018 |
2019.
To get PYTHON processing routines, email James Manning for the latest versions.
To see information on individual clusters, click the links in the following chronological table
| Institution (data) |
PI (report/blog) | Deployers (deploy video) | Date Deployed (animation) | Dropsite (forecast) | #units | Science (googleearth) | Status (googlemap) | ID-Type of Unit (photo) | Fate (photo) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Educational Passages | Baldwin/Stymiest | 2018 | Multiple Places | 20? | education | underway | unmanned sailboats | ||
| Educational Passages | Stymiest | 2019 | Multiple Places | 12+ | education | underway | unmanned sailboats | Navis_Stellum, MPA_Sewee_Spirit, American Sunset, SV_Jamestown, and more ... | |
| Waterstart | Fox | Polaris | 18 June 2019 | Off Bermuda | 1 | education | underway | Cassie surface bamboo drifter | 196320641 made several loops around Bermuda evidently stuck in the triangle, still going one year later!! |
| Wellan Montessori | Lucier | ?? | 19 Nov 2019 | Mass Bay | 2 | education/turtles | done | wooden turtle | 190420702 made it beyond Grand Banks healthy and upright, died in Aug 2020 south of Grand Banks |
| Savannah State | Hintz | R/V Margaret Robinson | 19 Nov 2019 | South Atlantic Bight | 1 | education | done | Irina surface drifters | 190320801 recirculating in North Atlantic died 16 Aug 2020; 190320802 died in Feb 2020; 190320803 died 31 Jan 2020; |
| Educational Passages | Stymiest | 2020 | Multiple Places | 8+ | education | underway | unmanned sailboats | DespaSEAto; RiptideII; Rye_Riptide; Philbert; to name a few ... | |
| Southern Maine Community College | Tarbox/Long | Captain B (Jeff Putnam) | 24 Feb 2020 | Jeffries Ledge | 1 | education | underway | Eddie2x4 mast | 202430702 Off Georges in June 2020, picked out of the water by tuna fisherman, Greg Mayer on F/V Fishin Frenzy out of Oregon Inlet in N. Carolina in Sept 2020, put back a week later, and ... |
| Oregon State University | Arnesen | ?? | 05 March 2020; 14 Oct 2020 | off Oregon | 2 | buoy | underway | Buoymooring | 203431241 |
| University of Otago New Zealand | Smith | ? | 01 June 2020 | off New Zealand | 6 | cross-frontal exchange | done | drogued drifters | 206451701 caught in fishing net 27 June and brought ashore (drogue cut free); 20645702 decommissioned Sept 2020; 206451703 decommissioned Sept 2020; 206451704 decommissioned Sept 2020; 206451705 decommissioned Sept 2020; 206451706 decommissioned Sept 2020 |
| Well Estuarine Reserve | Goldstein/Lippmann | R/V Endeavor | 25 June 2020 | Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve/UNH | 24 | lobster | underway | surface drifters | 206430702 decommissioned on 8 Aug 2020; 206430703 came ashore 7/5 and recovered by Christina at the end of Ocean Ave in Swampscott; 206430704 went dead east of Cape Code on 22 Sep 2020; 206430705 decommissioned on 8 Aug 2020; 206430708 decommissioned on 8 Aug 2020; 2064307010 went dead on Jeffries Ledge on 7/10/2020; 2064307011 went dead in warm core ring on 9/25/2020; 22064307017 went dead in Boston shipping lane 7/9/2020; 22064307018 went dead near Jefferies Ledge on 9/16/2020; 2064307019 came ashore 6/28 and recovered near Rye Harbor; 2064307020 came in an out of Newburyport Harbor on 6/30,eventually came ashore at the Gothwait Reservation near Marblehead, and recovered by their harbor master office ; 2064307021 decommissioned on 8 Aug 2020; 2064307022 came ashore 6/30 and recovered under dock in Newburyport ; 2064307023 decommissioned on 8 Aug 2020; |
| Jacksonville Marine Lab | Stalker | Crowley's M/V El Coqui | 25 July 2020 26 Sep2020 | Gulf Stream | 3 | Education | underway | surface drifter | 207200791 with PVC frame deployed in Gulf Stream off a container ship and petered out in early Fall; 209200791 and 209200792 with PVC frame also deployed in Gulf Stream |
| USCG SAR units | Wood | air deployed | 2019-2020 | East Coast & Lakes | ~20 | SAR | done | surface drifters | Search and Rescue |
| Governors Academy | Knight | F/V Lady Rebecca | 05 Oct 2020 | Fippennies Ledge Gulf of Maine | ~2 | education | underway | surface drifters | |
| United Technical Center | Baldwin | 11 Oct 2020 | 1 | education | underway | unmanned sailboat | The Alexander surveyed the Gulf of Maine for a few weeks and then ... |
Note: Most units are prepared by marine science students. The majority are standard "surface drifters" marking only the top 1-meter of the water column, but some units, as in the case of EP boats, track the wind and wave at the surface and some have subsurface drogues typically centered at 10m-15m below the surface. For details, call 508-495-4727 or email james.manning@noaa.gov.
