Chris Izworski

Published daily from Bay City, Michigan

Great Lakes Shipping News Today

The Great Lakes Gazette is a real daily newspaper for freighter watchers: one current edition covering vessel movements, port activity, lake levels, and marine weather across all five lakes.

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Today's Great Lakes GazettePublished every morning

Today's edition

Open the latest Great Lakes shipping edition

Current vessel movements, port notes, water levels, and weather from across the five lakes.

The live desk is loading the latest newspaper headline. The full edition remains available directly from the Gazette.

Daily editionAIS, NOAA, and NWS sources
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A Newspaper, Not Another Dashboard

The live maps and weather feeds already exist. The Gazette's job is to turn the morning's scattered information into an edition worth reading: one lead, short harbor notes, a levels ledger, weather on the water, and a concrete item to watch tomorrow.

Each issue gets its own permanent, indexable URL and stays in the archive. That makes the Gazette useful both as today's two-minute read and as a dated record of the Great Lakes navigation season.

Lead story

The most current watchable movement or port development that is new today.

Harbor Notes

Short vessel and port items from the Soo, Mackinac, Detroit, Welland, Duluth, Port Huron, and Saginaw.

Levels and weather

NOAA lake levels and National Weather Service open-lake forecasts in plain language.

Tomorrow's Watch

One specific vessel, arrival, weather turn, or report to check in the next edition.

Follow the Traffic Live

The newspaper explains what matters. These live tools let you watch it unfold.

Great Lakes Ship TrackerLake-wide AIS map with direct corridor views. Soo Locks TodayLive vessel map, passage sources, and the official boat hotline. Mackinac Bridge LiveOfficial status, cameras, weather, and crossing conditions. Great Lakes BuoysReporting NOAA wind, waves, and water temperatures.

How the Morning Desk Is Sourced

The edition is assembled automatically from current source data, then checked for factual grounding, stale movements, and repeat leads before publication. Port reports and vessel news older than 48 hours are excluded from the current-news context.

Vessels and ports

BoatNerd passage data and port reports at seven Great Lakes chokepoints. Public AIS can be delayed or incomplete and is never a navigation source.

Water levels

NOAA CO-OPS observations for Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario.

Marine weather

National Weather Service Great Lakes forecasts, including open-lake wind, wave, and warning context.

Lake reporting

Current Great Lakes environmental reporting and a daily history note, clearly separated from live vessel movements.