Measuring weather

Balloons are released into the air at midnight and noon Greenwich Mean Time at various locations around the world at over 1000 locations, a globally coordinated launch to provide a snapshot of global atmospheric conditions. You can see an older map of these stations to the left. In the United States and related territories, there are approximately 100 official launch sites!

Data are sent to the World Meteorological Organization's Global Telecommunication System and made available for climate records and weather forecasting purposes. From there, a number of weather analysis products are produced. These most frequently are maps like you see to the upper right from data at various pressure levels and energy diagrams like the "Skew-T" diagram you see to the lower right. Skew-T diagrams are helpful in gauging the stability of the atmosphere and can be used by weather professionals who predict clouds and storms. When soundings are reported, they are entered into an archive for later use by weather researchers.

 

Next page   -> in situ, upper air measurements, tethersondes, dropsondes & driftsondes

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