National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

Active Spring Like Pattern Across the Eastern Half of the Country

The second storm will track across central and eastern portion of the country this weekend. Heavy wintry precipitation will affect the northern Plains to the upper peninsula of Michigan. Severe thunderstorms are expected along and ahead of the cold front, where very large hail, damaging winds and a few tornadoes are possible from the mid-Mississippi and Ohio Valleys to southern Plains. 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