I always thought it'd be the water tower first...

[Jeff Snyder]

With the move to NWC, I always thought that the nearby water tower would be the first obstacle to get hit by a weather balloon. Instead, we have this:

Excuse the terrible picture quality (from my cellphone)... Yes, that's the 18z special sounding flapping in the wind, stuck to a lightpole in the NWC parking lot. I suppose I would have rather had seen a 20z sounding (to see we have a chance of moisening at around 875mb, assuming the winds back with time at that level), and maybe Ma' Nature agrees with me. Here's to hoping they launch another one! LOL

 

[Kenny Drake]

LOL I saw that as I was leaving the NWC. That sounding wont do us much justice as we would know the wind, temp, and Td at... The Weathernews building parking lot.

 

[Kiel Ortega]

Oh, the whole story is awesome. So I decided since it was a nice day out, I would go sit by the thing for an hour. Looks like the line was a little long and the package dragged and wrapped around the light pole; and the brave light pole held tight despite being bent pretty good. They had to do a sounding, so they inflated another balloon...and made the line a bit shorter. Once the 2nd balloon cleared the parking lot (and lights), the first balloon finally snapped the line and chased his friend up into the sky. It was formation flying by the balloons!

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

With the move to NWC, I always thought that the nearby water tower would be the first obstacle to get hit by a water balloon.

Is that how we get weather readings now??

 

[Aaron Kennedy]

Courtesy of someone at Weathernews Inc:

At least OUN uses He now instead of H for filling the balloons

 

[Chris Nuttall]

At least OUN uses He now instead of H for filling the balloons

That could have been the Hindenburg of weather balloons. Oh, the humanity!

 

[Aaron Kennedy]

They should know. I recall an instance where they hung 1 or 2 balloons in a tree at north base. I believe the fire dept. had to come out.

Aaron