LockPush no longer counts hulls from these cameras: the forecast never read them, and the processing cost more than it returned. They remain the best way to look at the water yourself. Both are public; the Salmon Bay cameras are the marina's own, so look and go.
The analysis below is kept as a record of what a camera can and cannot measure at the locks. Counting stopped on 4 September 2026.
Only the canal side is watched now. Four Salmon Bay cameras look at the canal; the Sound-side camera has been turned off. It was the only camera on that side, so nothing could check it: the four canal cameras watch the same water and agree with each other 0.43 to 0.81, while the only comparison available for the Sound camera was across the locks — and a boat takes 20 to 40 minutes to get from one to the other, which no matching window can bridge. An instrument whose accuracy cannot be measured should not feed a published number.
That has a consequence this page states rather than hides. Counting a queue needs both ends: boats seen going in, minus boats seen coming out the far side. With one end watched, outbound can still be counted — Salmon Bay sees them arrive and the Corps record confirms the clearance — while inbound reads “only one end was watched”, which is the truth and not a fault.
When three boats come out together, the doors have opened and a chamber load has left. That shortens the queue — though not always to nothing, since a queue longer than one chamber leaves some behind. Two boats close together is not enough; that happens without the doors opening.
The Corps lockage record is used as a backstop. It is authoritative but publishes about 13 minutes late, so the cameras cover the recent minutes it cannot and it confirms the older clearances the cameras may have missed.