These weather balloons are loaded up with hydrogen or helium, soar into the sky, up to and beyond jet stream level, getting to a height of over 100,000 feet before they pop. Attached to the ...

One of the key tools they look at is the data relayed by weather balloons. Weather doesn’t just happen here at the ground, yes, it’s where most of us feel the impacts of a storm system moving ...

Some National Weather Service offices are reducing and even suspending balloon launches due to staffing issues. Chris Michaels, WRAL meteorologist A critical weather tool is disappearing.

Weather forecasting requires making observations and predicting changes by solving a complex set of equations that describe the physics and dynamics of our atmosphere.

Helium shortages also led launches to be stopped ... That will leave forecast models without key data, he said. Without any weather balloons, Vagasky said, today’s forecasts would be about ...

Carrie Suffern, a meteorologist, prepares to release a weather ballon at the National Weather Service headquarters in Sterling, Va., in 2012.

It takes 90 minutes to an hour to fill a weather balloon with helium or hydrogen, get it fitted with a sensor, then ready it for launch making sure the radiosonde doesn't drag on the ground ...