Deactivated in 1989, the ship remained inactive at NOAA's Pacific Marine Center in Seattle for thirteen years.

In 2002, she began a refit at the Cascade General Shipyard in Portland, Oregon, and she was recommissioned in 2004 to aid with the backlog of critical surveys in Alaskan waters.

Fairweather was originally complemented for a crew of 69 people, with additional berthing capability for visitors and scientists.

Additionally, Fairweather's personnel routinely establish horizontal and vertical control instruments, such as Global Positioning System (GPS) base stations and tide-level measuring devices, in the remote areas in which the ship works.

On 30 April and 1 May 2017, the NOAA research ship NOAAS Oscar Dyson (R 224) surveyed an area in the Bering Sea off Dalnoi Point on the northwestern tip of St. George Island in the Pribilof Islands in a search for the wreck of the 92-foot (28.0 m) crab-fishing boat Destination, which had capsized and sunk in the area with the loss of her entire crew of six men on 11 February 2017.