Just a heads up that buoy 44017- Montauk - is currently up on the RI Forecast page. Please put back good ol 44097! Thanks in advance.
44097 restored as default buoy to RI and southern New England Islands. FYI. The buoys go down from time to time, so if you ever see a switch, it is because the default buoy is not operating or has gone adrift. We constantly monitor all the buoys around the country, and swap them for the locations when they go down.
I figured that was it. I just noticed that 44017 from Montauk had been swapped in as default, but 44097 Block Island was up and working. Rad job here and appreciate your diligence, this was simply an assist from someone who goes further than the color of the little lego man and the stack of boxes he's standing next to forecast his surfing. Looks to be fixed and right with the world. My thanks again.
Also, of note, when a buoy isn't reporting, you can look at the station data map, and you can see what buoys are and are not transmitting. For buoys that are out of service, we check once per day to see if they were restored.