The U.S. Navy just completed a demonstration of Meteomatics’ Meteodrones, successfully launching and recovering automated weather drones from moving vessels in the Mississippi Sound. The trials, conducted as part of the Advanced Naval Technology Exercise (ANTX) near Gulfport, mark a significant step forward in filling a critical gap in atmospheric observation over open ocean.
Meteomatics is a weather intelligence and technology company that enables precision forecasts of the weather’s impact on businesses anywhere in the world at any time. Its products include the autonomous Meteodrone, which — when paired with high-resolution weather models — enables granular visibility (down to a single square km) into weather phenomena. It also makes the Meteoglider, which is a reusable weather balloon.
Why the Meteomatics launch matters for naval operations
Naval missions have long struggled with a blind spot in weather data collection at sea. While weather balloons are standard on land, they’re nearly impossible to launch and track reliably from moving ships. Satellites provide broad coverage but lack the vertical resolution needed for tactical decisions in the lower atmosphere. Alas, that’s exactly where weather conditions most impact flight operations, radar performance and mission safety.
The Meteodrone trials successfully demonstrated launches and recoveries from ships moving at speeds between 1.5 and 16 knots. Operating under FAA regulations, the drones collected complete vertical atmospheric profiles including temperature, humidity, pressure, dew point and wind data — ascending to several thousand feet above sea level before returning safely to the vessel.
“For the last decade, U.S. military weather services have sought to consistently and reliably measure the atmosphere over the open ocean to improve forecast accuracy and identify atmospheric anomalies,” said Kevin Lacroix, Weather Services Technology Lead at Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command in a prepared statement. “Products with the capability to collect high-resolution, real-time atmospheric data, repeatedly, in environments of interest are valuable to military weather services for sensing the maritime boundary layer of the atmosphere.”
Tactical advantages beyond weather
And just to be clear, the real-time data collected by Meteodrones, which is a company based in Switzerland, offers the Navy far more than just improved weather forecasts. For example, the atmospheric intelligence can be fed into electromagnetic tactical decision aids, which they say is useful in optimizing radar performance and communication ranges. According to Meteodrones, understanding how environmental conditions extend or degrade these critical systems gives ship captains the confidence to make rapid decisions in dynamic maritime environments.
“Ship captains will have the confidence to make rapid decisions knowing that the METOC team has given them every advantage possible,” Lacroix said.
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Why Meteomatics weather drones matter
Military applications continue to drive innovation in the commercial drone sector (the drone industry as a whole stemmed from aircraft in the military). This latest demonstration validates how drone systems in challenging maritime environments.
The successful autonomous launch and recovery from moving platforms is particularly noteworthy. This capability has applications far beyond military use — think offshore energy operations, research vessels and commercial shipping.
And in fact, other companies that already use Meteomatics weather data in some capacity include Tesla, NASA and Airbus.
“This demonstration underscored not just the technical success of our Meteodrones, but also the practical value of capturing critical weather data at sea,” said Brad Guay, Head of Government & Defense Solutions at Meteomatics. “By proving that launches and recoveries can be achieved from moving vessels, we’ve shown how Meteomatics can help the Navy bridge one of the most significant gaps in operational forecasting.”
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