NWS to NWS (almost)

Well, it was bound to happen one day. And it did happen just up the road from us on January 13, 2015. The National Weather Service (NWS) in North Little Rock, AR, station identifier KLZK, prepared their routine upper air run by blowing up the balloon, calibrating the radiosonde instrument, and tying off the balloon with a parachute to allow the radiosonde to come down safely. Finally, after all the preparation, the balloon and its instrument package were all set to release. About an hour before 00Z, the balloon took flight into the Arkansas sky. The run was pretty uneventful, and as you might expect, the package encountered a west to east flow of air from about 700 millibars, roughly 10,000 feet, all the way up to over 100 millibars, roughly 55,000 feet. The wind between 300 and 200 millibars reached a maximum velocity of about 100 knots or 115 mph.

Then with the atmosphere getting thinner and thinner, the balloon finally burst, and the radiosonde began its free fall back to earth slowed to a safe speed by a simple paper parachute. Like many radiosondes, it landed in a tree and was left dangling from a low hanging branch. And this is where it really became interesting. The tree branch was sticking out of a tree in the front yard of the NWS office in Memphis, TN, approximately 80 air miles from the launch site.

So without the aid of any guidance, the radiosonde flew from one NWS office to another. That was one smart radiosonde!! See the pictures below for a view of the radiosonde dangling from the tree and the Skew-T diagram showing the high speed flow of air. You just can’t make this stuff up.

-Brian-

PS Here’s an update to this story. It seems the radiosonde did not land where it was reported, but it did land close. The radiosonde launched from LZK actually fell in Bartlett, TN, which is only a couple of air miles from the NWS Memphis office. The radiosonde landed in Bartlett, and the person who found it brought it to the Memphis NWS office. So it was NWS to NWS (almost)!!

Category: Alabama's Weather