National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

Critical Fire Weather in the Southern Plains; Severe Storms in the Ohio Valley

Strong winds and low humidity will create elevated to critical fire weather conditions across the Southern Plains on Thursday. Strong to severe thunderstorms are forecast in the Ohio Valley late Thursday into Friday morning, with the strongest storms capable of producing very large hail, damaging winds, and a few tornadoes. 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