We weren’t alone in the storm!

In our previous posts we mentioned the major storm our Wave Gliders went through, and we just recently found out that we weren’t alone out there! We learned that there was a Canadian family that was rescued by a container ship in the same vicinity (~600 Miles away) as our Wave Gliders.

We’re not sure if our Wave Glider data could have helped them in this instance. Maybe we could have helped steer them in the right direction, or have told them to maintain a holding pattern until the storm passed. But what is important to note is the lack of data available when you’re in the open ocean, you’re on your own as far as knowing what conditions to expect. Currently the only sources of data are buoy’s which are few and far between, and satellite instruments (which can be seen via the S.T.A.R. website). Unfortunately there is no single place where all of this data is aggregated and easily available to the public.