Balloons Tracking Storms and Saving Lives

Reported April 2007

DENVER (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- When hurricanes threaten, time is critical in making forecasts to save lives and property. When a hurricane strikes, forecasters need all the help they can get to predict just how bad it'll be. And scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) have taken another step in better predicting how strong a hurricane will be and where it will strike.

For decades, meteorologists have launched balloons to measure and track weather patterns. Now, these balloons are helping tropical forecasters better pinpoint the motion and severity of forming hurricanes.

A balloon launch in Niger, Africa, tracked hurricane formation information in 2006 that helped save lives in the United States. American scientists were ecstatic.

"We actually opened a bottle of champagne in Paris when, when the gondola got over the ocean," Senior Scientist David Parsons, of NCAR in Denver, tells Ivanhoe.

The balloon releases small capsules about the size of a water bottle called driftsondes. As a capsule drifts to earth, it transmits temperature, wind and pressure data to a satellite. The capsules are good for only one free fall and cost $300 to $400 each.

One balloon in the experiment gathered and transmitted information for 18 days after being released.

"Events with a damage of a billion dollars per event are getting to be much more common. So really a few thousand dollars spent on these measurements or even millions spent on research can be very cost effective," Parsons says.

Up to 1,500 driftsondes are expected to be released between today and December 2008.

The American Meteorological Society contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

American Meteorological Society
Boston, MA 02108-3693
(617) 227-2425
http://www.ametsoc.org

David Hosansky
Public Information
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
(303) 497-8611
hosansky@ucar.edu

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