In order to enhance navigational safety, the National Ocean Service and Greater Tampa Bay Marine Advisor Council (GTBMAC) established a permanent, operational, wide-area system to collect real-time directional wave, current, tide height, and meteorological data from multiple sites under the auspices of NOAA’s Physical Oceanographic Real-Time System (PORTS) program.  This system is operated and maintained by the University of South Florida.

Tampa Bay PORTS includes the integration of real-time currents, water levels, winds, wave height, visibility, air and water temperatures, and barometric pressure at multiple locations with a data dissemination system that includes telephone voice response, modem dial-up, dedicated modem displays, and World Wide Web/Internet sites. Tampa Bay PORTS consists of four acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs), four water level gauges, six anemometers (wind sensors), an atmospheric temperature and barometric pressure sensor, a directional wave gauge, packet radio transmission equipment, a data acquisition system, and an information dissemination system (IDS). The Woods Hole Group provided four Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCPs) which are bottom mounted near shipping lanes and cabled to Remote System Managers (RSMs) located on shore-based or offshore towers at Old Port Tampa, Manatee Channel, Sunshine Skyway Bridge, and Egmont Key (see figure).  Xenon Corporation conical fiberglass bottom platforms were used.

Several of these stations are also equipped with meteorological systems and visibility sensors.  At Egmont Key a three-element bottom wave gauge array is also wired to the RSM.  The RSM performs wave spectral analysis in-situ, compressing the information for telemetry, thereby making possible wave measurements at the remote offshore location.  Real-time data, collected by Tampa Bay PORTS can be accessed at http://ompl.marine.usf.edu.