 Between 1985 and 1994 , an extensive array of moored and drifting buoys was deployed across the equatorial Pacific Ocean designed to help monitor and predict the El Niño phenomenon . Hurricane Katrina capsized a 10 m ( 33 ft ) buoy for the first time in the history of the National Data Buoy Center ( <unk> ) on August 28 , 2005 . On June 13 , 2006 , drifting buoy <unk> ended its long @-@ term data collection of sea surface temperature after transmitting for 10 years , 4 months , and 16 days , which is the longest known data collection time for any drifting buoy . The first weather buoy in the Southern Ocean was deployed by the Integrated Marine Observing System ( <unk> ) on March 17 , 2010 . 
