File:330-ps-7999-usn-709685 16442000481 o.jpg

English: 330-PS-7999 (USN 709685): U.S. Navy Hurricane Weather Buoy. This week the U.S. Navy is launching at sea a member of instrumented weather buoy along known hurricane paths off the southeast coast of the United States. These free-floating, bright yellow buoys will provide regular weather reports in the tropical Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico in areas where hurricanes spawn or move. By use of this buoy, the U.S. Navy weather facilities may be able to detect or locate hurricanes at an early date in areas where only occasional ship reports are now available. The instrumented, free-floating hurricane buoy was developed for the Bureau of Aeronautics by the National Bureau of Standards and the Naval Research Laboratory. The overall length of the buoy is 25 feet of which 14 feet is below the surface of the water and its total weight is slightly over 300 pounds. Above the water is a super-structure containing instruments and a 7-foot whip antenna. This automatic weather station will transmit by radio on a six-hourly schedule over ranges in excess of 1,000 miles. This information which these robot weather observers will broadcast is: wind direction and speed; air pressure; air temperature and sea water temperature. The positions of the floating buoys will be determined daily by radio direction finding facilities. At the end of the hurricane season, they will be picked up by U.S. Navy ships for future use. Photograph released September 6, 1956. (2/3/2015).