NOAA’s National Weather Service is tapping technology to automate weather balloon launches in Alaska, a move that will allow staff to improve public service across the state while saving federal tax dollars.
Weather balloons, used by the National Weather Service for the past 80 years, are filled with hydrogen or helium and ascend 22 miles above earth through the troposphere and into the stratosphere. Radio transmitters attached to the balloon measure wind speed and direction, air pressure and temperature and relative humidity, and send this information to ground stations for use by weather models and meteorologists to produce forecasts. Balloons are released twice a day at 92 upper-air sites across the United States.
After nearly two years of field testing the technology in Kodiak, NWS has initiated a demonstration of autolaunchers in Alaska, with two of the state’s 13 upper-air sites already using them. Annette, Alaska, will receive an autolaunch system this month, and the technology will be installed across the state’s remaining 10 sites over the next two years.
The Alaska autolaunch demonstration is part of a broader agency initiative to move the signal used to transmit weather balloon data out of the radio frequency now used by NOAA’s new GOES satellites. Proceeds from the sale of government radio spectrum are funding new ground station equipment at all 92 weather balloon sites across the U.S., and autolaunchers at roughly 25 percent of them, to ready the upper-air program for the frequency migration. NWS is evaluating potential locations outside Alaska to receive the remaining autolaunch systems.
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Image via NOAA.