BOISE, Idaho — The National Weather Service (NWS) has many tools to keep everyone in Idaho informed about the forecast, but one device goes above all the others— literally.
Reaching heights of 100,000 feet above sea level, twice a day, every day, NWS sends weather balloons sky high to help track a number of statistics.
“They track the temperature, the humidity, and they are able to use their GPS circuitry to track wind direction and speed,” said Wasyl Hewko, a hydrometeorological technician who oversees balloon launches. “We want to get data not necessarily horizontally like we do for weather observation, but we want to get the vertical profile of the atmosphere.”
During the winter months, Hewko's scheduled launches happen daily at 4 a.m. and 4 p.m. MT.
Check out the hydrogen-hauled weather tracker:
This isn't a solo effort either. At the same time, across the world, hundreds of balloons are launched from 900 different sites— live tracking and building a visual guide of what the world's atmosphere and weather patterns look like in real time.
Hewko says the ultimate goal is to build “a three-dimensional profile of the atmosphere [with] all this information worldwide."
"This is the one time where the world is holding hands, I guess, as far as that goes, you know— everyone is in it to get this information, so we can have accurate forecast models,” added Hewko.
What's especially fascinating is that as the weather balloon gains altitude, the density of the atmosphere decreases, which allows the balloon to grow to "an incredible size," explained Hewko.
Ultimately, the balloon pops, but before it does, it can grow to be approximately the size of a two car garage.
If you want to see the balloons take flight, you can go to Sondehub.org to find out exactly where the launches take place on any given day.
