National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

Critical Fire Weather Conditions Continue; Pacific Storm to Bring Heavy Snow to the Sierra-Nevada

Critical fire weather conditions are forecast for the Southern Plains and portions of Florida through Thursday, as gusty winds and dry conditions return to the region. A Pacific storm system will bring strong winds and low elevation rain to much of the West Coast and central Great Basin, and heavy high elevation mountain snow to the Sierra-Nevada through Wednesday. 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