Attached to each weather balloon is a piece of equipment called a radiosonde. Radiosondes contain various elements to measure weather data such as temperature, relative humidity and pressure. There is also a GPS element that tracks wind speed and direction. Weather balloons are filled with either helium or hydrogen and when released, they are about five feet in diameter. As the balloon rises through the atmosphere, air pressure decreases and the balloon increases in size until it pop at about the size of a small house. Data is collected at different heights of the atmosphere and is transmitted back to a computer and placed on a graph called a Skew-T Log-P diagram. Meteorologists use this data to forecast everyday weather conditions, but the data becomes more important when severe weather is possible. Out of all of the balloon launch sites across the country, the three closest to mid-Missouri are Topeka, Kansas, Springfield, Missouri, and Lincoln, Illinois. This leaves a gap over middle and eastern Missouri where critical data can be collected when forecasting for severe weather. When severe weather is in the forecast, the National Weather Service (NWS) and Storm Prediction Center (SPC) will use University of Missouri meteorology students to help fill in the gaps. MU students will release their own weather balloons to collect data and transmit it to NWS, SPC, and media partners across the state so we can create accurate, potentially life-saving forecasts.
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