Eyes over Puget Sound

Around once a month, we take to the air and travel by boat to obtain high-resolution aerial photo observations and gather water data at our monitoring stations and state ferry transects. This provides us a visual picture of the health of Puget Sound, which we call Eyes Over Puget Sound or EOPS.

Eyes Over Puget Sound empowers you to:

  • See what is currently happening in Puget Sound.
  • See how weather and climate are shaping Puget Sound water quality.
  • Use Eyes Over Puget Sound as free educational material for your own endeavors.

You can download a copy of the latest Eyes Over Puget Sound.

Surface conditions on our latest flight

We have reached 100 Eyes Over Puget Sound reports! This issue is the one hundredth issue, a very special decade-in-review report, and the final one in this format. Stay tuned. 

Since 2011, we have provided aerial observations documenting visible features at the surface of Puget Sound from a floatplane. This unique aerial perspective featured Puget Sound's natural beauty, oceanographic complexity, ecological treasures, and has raised awareness of the challenges this waterbody is facing today.

Our image-rich documentation of known eutrophication indicators ranged from algal and Noctiluca blooms, macroalgae and jellyfish, to human stressors, and provide a visually captivating time capsule of issues facing Puget Sound.

Over the years, these reports have been rich in educational and outreach material, inspired numerous news reports, and drew academic and public attention, especially during the marine heat wave of the north Pacific, The Blob.

Learn more about Eyes Over Puget Sound