2024 Weekly Cyanobacteria Emails to the Community

Reports dwindled dramatically as we moved into November and head towards the 2024 season’s end in the middle of this month. 

Dive in Deeper
In this email you’ll find monitoring results from 11/3 – 11/9/24, resources to help you recognize and report cyanobacteria, and photographs of leaf litter, a bloom-free Magog, murky water at Whitehall, all clear at Alburgh, and week 21 bloom-free close-ups. 

In this email you’ll find monitoring results from 10/27 – 11/2/24, resources to help you recognize and report cyanobacteria, and photographs of fall beauty at Blanchard Beach, a leafy scene, Eagle Bay solitude, wind and whitecaps at Leddy Beach, Lake Bomoseen in the clear, a crayfish in the shallows at Alburgh Dunes, murky Magog, beach bubbles, and week 20 bloom-free scenes. 

We’re in the last few weeks of monitoring for the 2024 season with far fewer reports coming in but there are still bloom sightings so check water conditions carefully especially if you’re recreating with pets. 

Dive in Deeper
In this email you’ll find monitoring results from 10/20 – 10/26/24, resources to help you recognize and report cyanobacteria, and photographs of low alerts at Pt Au Roche State Park and Leddy Beach, cloudy skies and clear water at North Harbor, a high alert in North Hero, Newport Marina on Lake Memphremagog without cyanobacteria, murky water in Whitehall, Philipsburg QC bloom-free again, serene scenes at South Hero Town Beach, an autumn bloom at Oakledge, and Missisquoi Bay in Highgate Springs in the clear. 

We have a far smaller cadre of community science volunteers checking monitoring sites this time of year  so while we’re still receiving bloom reports our coverage both on Lake Champlain and inland waterways is greatly reduced. 

The cooler fall temperatures reduced the number of bloom sightings but we also have far fewer monitors reporting this late in the season so blooms could have been missed due to lack of coverage.

Dive in Deeper
In this email you’ll find monitoring results from 10/6 – 10/12/24, resources to help you recognize and report cyanobacteria, and photographs of cyanobacteria still showing up at Graveyard Point, turquoise cyanobacteria, stunning serenity, cyanobacteria specks, clear water at Newport Marina, Deep Bay still having blooms, a cloudy scene at Niquette Bay, autumn splendor, Pebble Beach beauty, week 17 cyanobacteria sightings, Inland Sea low alert, and a happy parting shot.

Over a third of the 91 monitoring reports received for Lake Champlain during week 16 chronicled blooms--only the Main Lake South and South Lake segments had no blooms reported. Lake Carmi and Shelburne Pond also had reports of blooms. While the season is winding down, cyanobacteria can still show up long into the fall.

The number of monitoring reports received for Lake Champlain fell below 100 for the first time this year during week 15 and we only received 16 reports from inland VT waterways as more volunteers and state and municipal seasonal staff left lakeside posts. Calm, dry, and relatively warm weather helped stimulate or sustain some significant blooms in Lake Champlain’s Main Lake North and Inland Sea and Malletts Bay had bloom activity as well. 

Blooms were observed daily during week 14 of monitoring and dominated the reports received on 9/15 and 9/20/24. A third of the reports over the seven-day period were of blooms reinforcing the importance of monitoring through much of fall and checking water conditions carefully before recreating.

Hot weather at the end of week 13 helped fuel more blooms on Lake Champlain and inland waterways. When reviewing the stats for this week keep in mind that we have fewer monitors reporting this time of year, so coverage is less comprehensive. Case in point, we only received one report from St. Albans Bay but there were likely more blooms in that area during the week.

Reporting dropped off dramatically during week 12 as we had fewer blooms, and many municipal and state personnel who monitor beaches left seasonal posts. Reminder that while week 12 had a fairly low incidence of blooms compared to recent weeks it is still peak bloom season and cyanobacteria can show up in any waterway. (We are seeing a bloom response to the warmer temperatures in week 13.)

Dive in Deeper
Happily the extensive late August bloom in northeastern Lake Champlain had dissipated by week 12 and the start of September.

Blooms were dominant at the beginning of week 11 in the northeast section of Lake Champlain on 8/26 with extensive ones reported in Missisquoi Bay, St. Albans Bay, Main Lake North, and the Inland Sea. Blooms were also observed at Lake Carmi, Lake Memphremagog, Shelburne Pond, and Ticklenaked Pond and unusual pink cyanobacteria was observed at Silver Lake in Barnard VT. 

Week 10 was busy for the LCC cyanobacteria monitoring team as Lori announced her upcoming retirement (12/31/24), Alexa got married, Lindsey headed off to trek for a week in the wilds of Montana and Alberta, and Eileen wrapped up a big project on native aquatic plants. On the cyanobacteria beat, blooms dominated the scene in some Quebec portions of Lake Champlain’s Missisquoi Bay and parts of St. Albans Bay.

It was another week of highly variable conditions depending upon where you were. Monitors filed 240 reports during week 9 and 19% were of blooms. The majority came from northern sections of Lake Champlain. Some blooms persisted for days and continued into week 10. The many bloom reports also delayed the compilation and sending of our weekly email. LCC does roughly 90% of the report vetting and follow-up with monitors so our report to you goes out later during high traffic weeks.

Some extensive and persistent blooms were experienced in northern sections of Lake Champlain and various inland waterways including the Poultney River during week 8 of monitoring. Big thanks to all the community science volunteers who are chronicling conditions. Cyanobacteria monitoring will continue through the fall so click here if you’d like to join the 2024 cyanobacteria monitoring team.  

While most monitors reported generally safe conditions during their week 7 site rounds, those that did observe blooms often found them widespread. And blooms certainly weren’t restricted to Lake Champlain – VT inland waterways of Lake Carmi, Shadow Lake, and the Moore Reservoir all had significant blooms. In this email you’ll find details on weekly conditions, resources to help you recognize cyanobacteria, along with photographs of Gloeotrichia sp.; spinach smoothie look-alikes; bloom gloom at Lake Champlain sites at Venise-en-Québec QC, Philipsburg QC, Macomber Point in the Inland Sea VT, Niquette Bay VT;  and inland lake VT sites at Lake Carmi, Shadow Lake, and Shelburne Pond;

While many monitors reported bloom-free conditions during week 6, where cyanobacteria did show up it sometimes persisted for several days. In this email you’ll find details on weekly conditions; resources to help you recognize, avoid and report cyanobacteria; and photographs of week 6 bloom zooms, high alerts at Stephenson’s Point VT and Philipsburg QC, a low alert at Lake Carmi, khaki-colored blooms, clumps of blooms, Gloeotrichia sp. – a colonial cyanobacteria, tools of the trade, clear water scenes, and parting shots tracking a bloom.  

Monitors weathered another week of IT challenges as the tech issue that shut systems down worldwide also affected the cyanobacteria tracker. It’s the reason you’re getting this weekly compilation of results much later than usual. Many LCC monitors had to delay filing reports due to the IT problem so there was a backlog of assessments to enter and vet once the tracker was working again.

It was eerily familiar last week as floodwaters wreaked havoc on infrastructure, communities, and ecosystems, exactly a year after the historic July 2023 flooding. We hope you didn’t personally endure damage but know everyone in the watershed is affected as we witness the devastating effects of another high intensity storm. Some monitors were unable to access their sites due to washed out roads and some sites are closed due to damage.

Hot weather during the 4^th of July holiday led to a burst of blooms and the cyanobacteria tracker went down over the weekend making for a challenging week! Please read on for  June 30 – July 6, 2024 monitoring results and resources to help you recognize, avoid and report cyanobacteria. Click on the links to view a dense bloom along the Philipsburg QC shoreline; high alert conditions at Lake Champlain lakeshore sites in South Hero, and Charlotte, VT; low alert Lake Champlain VT blooms at Alburgh Dunes State Park and Burlington’s North Beach; Vermont inland lake blooms; a cyanobacteria series; a bloom breaking down; a graph of three weeks of Lake Champlain reporting results; clear water conditions; and a parting shot from Week 3.

Happy summer! Thank you for signing up to receive the Lake Champlain Committee (LCC) Cyanobacteria monitoring reports! Each week we’ll send you an update about conditions monitors are finding on Lake Champlain and at select inland Vermont lakes. Monitoring began the week of June 16 and will run through early fall. This week’s report covers results from Sunday, June 23 through Saturday, June 29, 2024. If you missed the first week’s report, you can find it at this link.

Thank you for signing up to receive the Lake Champlain Committee (LCC) Cyanobacteria monitoring reports! Monitoring began the week of June 16 and will run through early fall. Each week we’ll send you an update about conditions monitors are finding on Lake Champlain and at select inland Vermont lakes. This week’s report covers results from Sunday, June 16 through Saturday, June 22, 2024. If you’d like to learn more about cyanobacteria or join our monitoring team please sign up here.