National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

Severe Thunderstorms in the Central U.S.; Record Temperatures Likely for Eastern U.S.

Several rounds of severe thunderstorms are forecast from the southern Plains to the Midwest today through Friday. Large hail, damaging wind gusts, and tornadoes are possible. A significant warm-up is expected for much of the southeastern U.S. and parts of the central U.S. into next week. Several daily record high maximum and high minimum temperature records are likely to be broken. 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