Drifting Buoys
Area of Interest
EGOS drifting buoys are deployed and operated in an area bounded by 25°N and 66°N latitude and usually between 45°W longitude and the European continent. The buoys are deployed by ships of opportunity sailing from Iceland to the eastern coast of the United States, by ships en route from Denmark to the Cape Farewell and by ships sailing from United Kingdom to the Caribbean. The EGOS Program is divided into two sub-programs: EGOS North, for buoys deployed north of 50°N and EGOS South, for buoys deployed south of 50°N. Because of its importance as a development area for cyclonic weather systems most of the Program activity is in the EGOS North area.
The EGOS buoy data are, in order of importance:
.
Table 1. Average operational lifetime for EGOS Drifting Buoys
during the years 1990-1995.
The lifetime is the period that operational data are available on
the Global Telecommunications System (GTS).
Buoys Type
Various types of drifting buoys are used in the EGOS program.
All of the EGOS drifting buoys report air pressure, air pressure tendency
and sea surface temperature. Most also report air temperature and a smaller
number also report wind speed and wind direction.
Reports all include the latest asynoptic observation; most also contain the
last or last two synoptic observations, or contain stored information to
enable synoptic observation to be generated.Buoys Lifetime
The average operational lifetime for drifting buoys in the EGOS Program is in excess
of 200 days, as is indicated by the following table.
YEAR LIFETIME
1990 128 days
1991 123 days
1992 273 days
1993 218 days
1994 186 days
1995 279 days
Statistics
