National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

Heavy Rainfall for the Mid-Atlantic; Heat and Wildfire Concerns for the West

Slow moving showers and thunderstorms may result in flash flooding for portions of the mid-Atlantic region today into tonight. Meanwhile, excessive heat will continue to build across the West through Tuesday. Heat Advisories and Extreme Heat Warnings are in effect. Fire Weather concerns continue for the interior Northwest with dry and breezy conditions. Watching the tropics across the Southeast. Read More >

Recently, we recorded an upper-air launch at our office. Much of the edited video is from a first person perspective, giving unique insight into how our meteorologists launch the weather balloon. It was breezy the day the radiosonde was launched, adding some excitement to the mix.

We normally launch the balloon twice a day. The sounding, as it is called, is released around 4am/pm or 5am/pm depending on whether daylight savings time is in effect or not.

Example output from our most recent sounding:

Most recent sounding from KRAP Upper-Air site