Weather Balloons

Every day, approximately 1,800 weather balloons are launched globally, providing essential data for weather forecasting and climate research. These balloons are typically sent up twice a day at 00:00 and 12:00 UTC from hundreds of locations around the world. This synchronized effort ensures that meteorologists receive consistent and comparable atmospheric data across different regions, allowing for the creation of accurate global weather models.

Weather balloons reach impressive altitudes of up to 30 kilometers (about 19 miles) before bursting due to the decreased atmospheric pressure. This high-altitude journey enables the balloons to gather data from various layers of the atmosphere. The instruments carried by these balloons, known as radiosondes, measure a range of atmospheric parameters, including temperature, humidity, pressure, and wind speed and direction.

This diverse data is crucial for studying weather patterns and providing accurate weather predictions. After the balloon bursts, the radiosondes often parachute back to Earth, where they can sometimes be recovered and reused for future launches. The initial size of a weather balloon is about 1.5 meters in diameter, but it expands exponentially to as much as 10 meters before bursting. These routine launches, although seemingly simple, provide a critical backbone for our understanding of meteorological phenomena and our ability to forecast weather accurately.