A weather balloon is released at the National Weather Service office in Green Bay, April 10, 2024. PC: Fox 11 Online
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — The National Weather Service announced Thursday it is reducing weather balloon launches in six cities — including Green Bay.
According to officials, the change is due to staffing issues. This comes after President Donald Trump’s administration cut hundreds of NWS and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) employees in an effort to scale back the federal workforce.
Effective immediately and until further notice, the NWS will launch only one weather balloon in Green Bay each day, rather than its typical two. The morning launch has been eliminated, but the daily 7 p.m. launch remains.
The purpose of launching weather balloons is to gather important information that supports forecasting and data collection. The NWS sends up weather balloons twice each day from 100 sites throughout the U.S., Caribbean and Pacific Basin.
Radiosondes are instruments attached to weather balloons that send back a wide range of upper atmospheric data to support weather forecasts, including temperature, dew point, relative humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed, and wind direction. Radiosondes are one of many technologies that are used to collect earth observation data for weather modeling and forecasting. Data is also collected from instruments aboard commercial aircraft, surface observing stations, satellites, radars, and buoys.
Comments