Friday, January 22, 2016

Weather Balloons

I am sure that many of you in the United States know that the much of the east coast is experiencing a snow storm. If you are interested in knowing what is going on in a particular area of the east coast, just go to the National Weather Service.

I woke up this morning to no heat, fortunately the technician came almost first thing in the morning and it was up and running by 11:30 AM. Wish us luck. I am not quite sure what this storm will bring us. I am about 60 miles inland. Nonetheless, we are under a blizzard warning until early Sunday morning. I am hoping to set a couple of blog entries to post automatically into next week, just in case. Murphy's law and all that. [Comment added on December 14, 2016: for those who might be arriving at this post in late 2016 or after, I measured 23 inches of snow during the January 22-23rd snow storm. A lot of snow and we had good help with snow removal. We remained powered during and after the storm.]

Anyway, I got the idea for today's post (January 22, 2016) because a nearby National Weather Service Office (NWS), New York, NY launched extra weather balloons last night and today because of the upcoming storm. Let me backtrack a bit. Several National Weather Service offices around the country launch weather balloons twice a day with a radiosonde. The radiosonde measures and transmits air pressure, temperature, relative humidity, wind direction and wind speed. The NWS New York, NY is one of the NWS offices that launches balloons. Not every NWS office launches a balloon, mine in Mt. Holly does not. But Mt. Holly will get the balloon data from NWS offices that launch balloons. Among other things, the data from the balloons are used in the weather prediction models used by the NWS. For more information on weather balloons go to this NWS page

You may read about the extra balloon launches by the NWS New York, NY here and here.

Here are a couple of videos from the NWS New York, NY on their balloon launches.



I could be wrong, but I believe that the National Hurricane Center's Hurricane Hunter Aircraft may have flown into the low pressure system that is now bringing snow to the eastern seaboard. 

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