Saginaw River Year End Review: May 2024

2024 Year in Review: May 2024.  This is going to be a huge photo dump!  So many great images were shot in this early part of the season!  There were 25 vessel passages on the Saginaw River in May, the same as in 2023.  The total for the year to date was 41 commercial vessel passages, four more that the same period in 2023.  Happy Ranger was the first salt water vessel to visit the river in 2024, arriving on May 30th.  

For aerial photography, I flew the drone 28 times in May, covering 26.44 miles and 5 hours 28 minutes of flight time.  For the year to date, that equals 64 flights, covering 61.77 miles, over 10 hours and 47 minutes of flight time.

Saginaw River Report - December 2024

There were only six commercial vessel passages on the Saginaw River during the month of December 2024, with only three different docks receiving the six deliveries of product, with no split cargo loads.  This represents seven fewer vessel passages than recorded during December 2023, and it is less than all of the long term averages, with the 5-year average at 11 passages for December, the 10-year average at 10 passages, the 15-year average at 9 passages, and the 20-year average of 11 commercial vessel passages for the month of December.

For the total number of commercial vessel passages for the year-to-date, there have been 195.  This is 26 more passages than last year at this point.  Looking at the averages, the 195 passages for the year to date are more than the 5-year average of 183, the 10-year average of 162 passages, the 15-year average of 152 passages, and the 20-year average of 177 vessel passages.

During the month of December, all six deliveries were to docks on the lower half of the Saginaw River, located in Essexville and Bay City, and none to upper river docks, located in Zilwaukee, Carrollton, and Saginaw due to Lafayette Bridge being closed to masted navigation.