Weather Balloon Gap Forces StormGeo to get Creative

When a lack of meteorological data from high-altitude, government-launched weather balloons threatens the accuracy of the forecast, StormGeo meteorologists launch their own balloons.

Meteorologists in StormGeo’s Houston office know the high value and critical nature of data derived from weather balloons, yet no balloon-launch facility is close enough to Houston to provide the type of useful information that is so crucial to the accuracy of the weather forecast. To the meteorologists of StormGeo’s largest global forecasting center, there is only one solution: launch their own balloons.

Thanks to an agreement with the University of Houston’s Atmospheric Sciences program, students launch the StormGeo weather balloons at the request of StormGeo’s meteorologists. The students then receive the data from the balloon’s onboard sensors and transmit the data to the StormGeo forecast center for interpretation. The StormGeo data is also shared with local agencies, including the National Weather Service, allowing the data to contribute to the accuracy of not only the StormGeo forecasts, but also to the weather forecasts for the general population of Southeast Texas.

Watch the video here.