Irish Weather Buoy Network to feature on RTE’s Weather Live

The work of the Marine Institute's Irish Weather Buoy Network will feature on RTE's Weather Live this Friday evening (17 November).

The programme has filmed the redeployment of the M5 weather buoy which broke free during Storm Ophelia. The show will also feature an interview with the Marine Institute's Dr Guy Westbrook.

A weather buoy has been transported to the Botanic Gardens in Dublin, where Weather Live broadcasts live from, so those tuning in can see what one looks like.

The Irish Weather Buoy Network (www.marine.ie/databuoy) delivers data every hour that is then fed into a global information network which includes Met Éireann, the Irish Meteorological Service. This data is then used to inform Met Éireann in its forecasts and it's also used for long term information gathering.

The M5 weather buoy, located off the south east coast, captured two records for that buoy during Ophelia – record individual wave (Hmax) of 17.81m and a record significant wave height (Hs) of 12.97m.

During the storm, the raging seas caused the M5 mooring to break and the buoy needed to be recovered to shore when the seas had calmed. Due to the relative importance to forecasters of the M5 weather observing location, it was decided to deploy the M4 target system that had been on test in Killybegs at M5.

This buoy was disassembled and transported by road to Cobh dockyard where it was loaded onto ILV Granuaile and prepared for subsequent deployment. Marine Institute staff embarked the vessel on 1 November and deployment of the buoy took place the next day in exceptionally calm conditions.

Weather Live is a three day television event on RTE One that focuses on the fascinating world of weather. It's presented by Kathryn Thomas and features meteorologists including Evelyn Cusack, Gerald Fleming and Gerry Murphy. It's broadcast from Wednesday 15 to Friday 17 November at 7pm on RTE One.