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Radar Painting
Installation
of the New Weather Balloon Equipment (RRS)
The
long-awaited replacement of our Weather Balloon equipment took place
on the week of May 15-19, 2006. Some of the old equipment was vintage
World War II. The dish in the upper air dome would track the signal
coming from the weather balloon. The computer would convert the azimuth
and elevation of the dish into wind direction and speed. The weather
balloon instrument would transmit pressure, temperature, and relative
humidity.
The
new RRS employs GPS technology. Rather than calculating the winds from
the dish orientation, the weather balloon instrument has a GPS receiver,
and transmits it latitude/longitude coordinates, from which the winds
are computed.
Thus,
wind information from the new RRS is more accurate than the old system.
Additionally, more data is made available for viewing.
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![Disposing of the old Upper Air equipment](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20081013130048im_/http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/images/otx/photo_gallery/RRS/ART_disposal.jpg)
Workers taking
out the old ground receiving equipment.
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![Crane lifting the new Upper Air equipment](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20081013130048im_/http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/images/otx/photo_gallery/RRS/TRS_install.jpg)
Using a crane,
the new dish pedestal is lifted to the upper air dome.
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![First Balloon Launch](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20081013130048im_/http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/images/otx/photo_gallery/RRS/First_release.jpg)
First official release
of the new weather balloon at 4am PDT, 22 May 2006. The man on the left
has just released the balloon. A glow stick tied beneath the balloon
is used for early morning launches to help us get an initial sighting
once the balloon is in the air. Below the glow stick is the orange parachute,
which will eventually open when the balloon bursts.
The man on the right is
holding the instrument package (small white box), and is waiting for
the balloon to ascend and pull the instrument package up. This package
contains sensors for temperature, pressure, humidity, and GPS.
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National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
National Weather Service
Spokane Weather Forecast Office
2601 N. Rambo Rd.
Spokane, Washington 99224
Tel: (509) 244-0110
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