A new weather balloon initiative at Indiana University is helping improve local and national forecasts.
Travis O’Brien, associate professor in the IU department of earth and atmospheric sciences, started the program with colleague Cody Kirkpatrick to improve forecasts in the area and give students educational opportunities. He said weather balloons can collect more specific data compared to satellites, which provide more general estimates.
When released into the atmosphere, weather balloons collect data on temperature, air pressure, height and humidity. O’Brien said this data improves the accuracy of weather forecasts you see on your phone for a few days following the launch.
“If you watch the news, the weather forecasters are basing their forecasts off these models,” he said.
The weather balloon O’Brien and students launched Thursday night traveled northeast for about 112 miles before popping just outside of Saratoga, Indiana, a town east of Muncie.
“Forecasting is really a game of, how can we get our best knowledge possible of temperature, pressure, humidity, wind, everywhere in the atmosphere,” he said. “The best-case scenario is we would know all of those things everywhere. Of course, we can't know that. We can't measure everywhere all the time. So really, what we're trying to do is augment measurements in times and places where it's important, like these severe thunderstorm times where there's a lot of forecast uncertainty.”
There is a parachute attached to the balloon, O’Brien said, so when it pops, it descends slow enough that the measuring component in the balloon isn’t damaged. He said Kirkpatrick estimates it would feel like the weight of a banana.
O’Brien started launching weather balloons in February with over a dozen other universities across the country, including Valparaiso University, Ohio State University and Oregon State University, as part of the Coordinated University Sounding Program for Atmospheric River Reconnaissance. Atmospheric rivers are narrow bands in the atmosphere that transport water vapor from tropics to poles; they’re often connected to severe weather.
Aside from collecting data for the Reconnaissance, O’Brien is also collecting data for the National Weather Service to help fill a gap in predicting severe weather. The federal government cut 550 positions within the NWS last year. That included halting weather balloon launches in at least 13 of nearly 100 sites.
“We're in sort of a hole. The nearest one [weather balloon], I think, is in Lincoln, Illinois, that's regularly sent up,” he said. “There's no regular site in Indiana that routinely sends these up. So especially for seasons like this, in the spring, where we've got thunderstorms coming through, these are really important.”
The initiative is funded through a donation, O’Brien said. It costs approximately $300 per launch, including the balloon, helium, the balloon train (everything that attaches to the balloon), and the radiosonde itself, a device in the weather balloon that collects the data. Amid federal cuts, he said universities are a more cost-effective way to launch radiosondes. It gives students the opportunity to do field work early on.
“You've got students who are really highly motivated, like you can see the number of students out here at almost eight o'clock on a weeknight, right? It's really cool. Students are engaged. They get to learn from this,” he said. “Traditionally, it's been the National Weather Service that has managed this, which means you need a staff member, and their staff costs money. It's expensive to hire a person whose job is to do radiosonde launches.”
At Thursday’s launch, graduate student Rebecca Porter held the radiosonde that stays on site and gathers data the balloon transmits. She said she’s appreciated the field experience.
“I feel like I didn't have a really good conceptual sense of how data was, A, collected and B, then integrated into forecasting until I started coming to these,” she said. “A lot of times what happens is you sit here while you're waiting for the data to be collected, you're chatting with people, and you're learning. You're asking, oh, why does the graph look like this? And how does this work? And this is a big learning opportunity for us.”
Mikkel Rhodes, a junior studying atmospheric science, has attended launches since they started in February. Thursday, he helped with general balloon setup, holding it straight to make sure it didn’t blow into anything sharp. He’s also helped with setting up the computer software so it collects data correctly.
“This is a good experience if I do end up going to something such as the National Weather Service,” he said.
O’Brien said since the wind tends to blow eastward, the data the weather balloon collects on the atmosphere here can help inform future forecasts as far away as the east coast. The data is uploaded to the Global Telecommunication System that forecasters around the world can access. He said it’s exciting to be part of an initiative providing data on an international scale.
“It is really energizing,” he said. “I mean, it takes a lot of time to get these balloons up from the preparation to the waiting for the data to come in. And even still, I'm motivated to be out here at eight o'clock on a day where my day's already been incredibly long like this. It's really cool to be involved in this.”
The donated funds O’Brien’s department received was enough to purchase supplies for 100 launches. He plans to continue launches a few times a week this spring and in the fall. He hopes to pursue federal, private and university funding to continue launches beyond the fall. Aside from providing educational opportunities for students, he also thinks these balloons help the public better understand how weather works.
“I think it's really important for the general public to have an idea of what forecasts actually are,” he said. “How much should I believe it when it says it's going to be 15 degrees, 14 days from now? Short answer is, 14 days from now, our forecasts aren't that great…I think it's part of our responsibility to engage with the public about the science that we do, and it's something I love doing.”
