Observation Programs

Launching the Weather Balloon...
Lake Charles Style!

Click the links below for pics as we guide you through the process of taking a sounding

We inflate the weather balloon in this building. The red tanks on the outside of the building are filled with hydrogen. In the white dome on top of the building, a radar dish tracks the weather balloon and receives radio transmissions from the radiosonde.
The weather balloon is filled with hydrogen gas through a nozzle. When the balloon is fully inflated, it will stand over 6 feet high.
After the balloon is filled, it is tied off with a piece of string and attached to a long line with a parachute.
Inside our office, an instrument called a radiosonde is checked for calibrations. The radiosonde will transmit temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure and position to the radar inside the dish on top of the upper air building, then passed along to the PC seen earlier.
Twice a day, at 5 am and 5 pm CST (6 am and 6 pm CDT), we launch the weather balloon. (Click here, here, here, here, here and here for additional photos of the launch process)
The data received from our balloon, along with hundreds of other simultaneous flights around the world, are fed into supercomputers at the Weather Prediction Center, as well as other meteorological centers internationally, for inclusion in computer weather models.
Once the balloon bursts and the flight is complete, the data is displayed in a format known as a sounding or raob (short for radiosonde observation) for meteorologists to use to decipher the airmass in place in the vicinity of the launch site.

For a more detailed explanation of the launch process, click here for a brief video.