- Meteorologists rely on weather balloon launches to gather critical data for forecasting accuracy.
Before KARE 11 chief meteorologist John Zeigler preps his forecast each day, he looks to a trusted source of data that comes directly from the sky above.
“I look at this sounding data every day,” Zeigler said, pointing to a graph provided by a National Weather Service (NWS) balloon launched above the Twin Cities on Wednesday morning. “This is when we had the heavy rain this morning and we know that as meteorologists because the dew point and the temperature are touching all the way up the atmosphere, so it was a heavy rain sounding.”
Though the balloons may seem like an old-school tool, Zeigler and meteorologist Ben Dery, say they provide critical data to them and the supercomputers that run the major forecasting models…