Post 4: Summary of First Deployment
We are officially done tracking all of the drifters from our first release back in October! The remaining two drifters (Drifter #1 made by Athvika and Drifter #4 made by Maddie) continued their paths out into the Atlantic up until December 1st when, due to the limited GPS tracking time paid for each drifter, we were no longer able to see their live position. Even though we cannot track them, the drifters are still moving with the currents, and we hope to get a phone call revealing their final locations if they eventually reach land (maybe Ireland if they get caught up in the Gulf Stream??).
The final tracked location of each drifter is shown in the map. Data can be found at https://studentdrifters.org/tracks/drift_osteam_2025_1.html.
So far, the data collected from this release has been extremely interesting and useful in understanding the processes and features numerical models of Cape Cod Bay have trouble capturing. For example, when first deployed on October 24, all four of our drifters traveled north for three days – a path our model did not forecast. We attribute this discrepancy to the fact that the actual winds experienced by the drifters during that time were different from those calculated by the model. We plan to do more analysis once we can compare multiple drifter releases. On that note, we aim to release another set of drifters in February 2026, so stay tuned for updates!
