The Rayo (Red de Alerta Y Observación - Alert and Observation Network) project consists of a series of networks deployed to measure and monitor the marine environment in Spanish waters. The main part of the system is the so called "deep water network", consisting of 9 Seawatch buoys (provided by Oceanor) measuring waves, currents, wind, atmospheric pressure and temperature, sea surface temperature and salinity. Information from the Seawatch buoys is transmitted every hour via lnmarsat to both the harbour authorities and to the main building at Puertos del Estado. Madrid. Additionally, directional wave information is propagated in real time to the mouths of the harbours by means of a wave model. The propagation method, which is extremely efficient from a computational point of view, is based on the so called "spectral point to point propagation", developed at Puertos del Estado. The deep water network is complemented with three current meter chains, 3 directional Smart buoys for shallow water directional wave measurements and 3 coastal radars. The networks were set-up during 1997 and 1998, becoming fully operational in 199% in this paper, the network is introduced, experience from the set-up phase is presented (with a special focus on operational aspects) and first results, not previously presented, are analyzed.
The Rayo (Red de Alerta Y Observación - Alert and Observation Network) project has been a great innovation in the measuring networks existing in Spain for several reasons: the variety of sensors in every buoy, their location in deep water and the real time transmission of the measured data. The main goals of the project are to obtain a complete picture of the Spanish seas, useful both for scientific and engineering purposes, and to prevent and alert the users with real time inlbrmation about the ocean.
