The station was installed July 16 by Joe Banta of the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens' Advisory Council and Rob Campbell of the Prince William Sound Science Center, with help from personnel from the Cordova Coast Guard air station.
The station is actually a metal tripod with a 20-foot mast. On top of the mast is an anemometer, which measures wind speed and direction. The 300-pound device includes batteries that are recharged by a solar panel, Campbell said.
The weather station essentially makes a satellite telephone transmission using the Iridium system of several dozen satellites so that mariners and aviators can get the latest wind speed and direction by downloading it onto the on-board computers, he said.
Micro Specialties Inc. of Wasilla designed the weather station, which measures wind speed and direction, temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure and solar radiation. It reports hourly via the satellite link.
The station was purchased by the RCAC after an incident where a Tesoro tanker was damaged by high winds and seas.
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