eight to ten weeks, the unit self-destructed.

The Navy Oceanographic Meteorological Automatic Device (NOMAD) buoy's 6 m hull was originally designed in the 1940s for the United States Navy's offshore data collection program. The United States Navy tested marine automatic weather stations for hurricane conditions between 1956 and 1958, though radio transmission range and battery life was limited. Between 1951 and 1970,