While federal cuts are to blame for the government not renewing the partnership research with Saildrone Inc. this hurricane season, according to CNN. The research has been essential in forecasting and science.
"The sail drones are equipped with a special 'hurricane wing,' which looks like a hard sail, to withstand the extreme wind conditions encountered in storms as they gather data from the near-surface ocean and atmosphere in real-time," NOAA explains. "The data is then used to improve the understanding and prediction of tropical cyclone intensity changes and advance our knowledge of the ocean-atmosphere interactions that fuel them."
While the sail drones did not make the federal agenda for hurricane season 2025, the company did partner with Meta for extensive ocean surveying, according to a recent press release.
"In a first-of-its-kind demonstration mission, Saildrone, in partnership with Meta, successfully completed a deep-water cable route survey in the North Atlantic using the Saildrone Surveyor, a 20-meter unmanned surface vehicle," a portion reads.
The survey includes detailed geophysical and geotechnical data. While not a venture for meteorologists in forecasting hurricanes this season.
"With saildrones missing in action this hurricane season, meteorologists will lack continuous, direct observations of hurricanes' strongest winds near the surface of the ocean and temperatures of the warm water that fuels the storms," a portion of the CNN report reads.
Still, it's important to stay alert this hurricane season.
Hurricane season in the Atlantic Basin is reaching its mid-point. It lasts until Nov. 1, NOAA reports, and while keeping an eye on the tropics, meteorologists are monitoring a few systems as of Aug. 6. One is several hundred miles off the coast of the southeastern U.S., with a forecasted 40% of development in the next seven days.
The second area of interest is a tropical wave over the eastern tropical Atlantic, continuing to produce a broad area of disorganized showers and thunderstorms, according to the National Hurricane Center Facebook post below. A tropical depression could form late week, with a possible formation in seven days as the system moves generally west-northwestward to northwestward across the central tropical and subtropical Atlantic.
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