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.

Some meteorologists and public officials warned that reductions, which leave the agency nearly 20 percent smaller, could have ...

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.

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 ...

There is also a GPS element that tracks wind speed and direction. Weather balloons are filled with either helium or hydrogen and when released, they are about five feet in diameter. As the balloon ...

Take a drive through one of the Elkhorn neighborhoods affected by Friday's tornadoes in Nebraska. The National Weather Service should be classified as a public safety entity to protect it from ...