We've been busy early in 2020 with upgrades to area radars, but there's another awesome new tool added this year that will improve our observations of the atmosphere: an Automated Radiosonde Observation System (AROS)! 1/5
Meteorologists at 92 locations in the US and its territories and many others worldwide have launched weather balloons twice a day, every day for many decades. Here's one example of how the process typically works, made a while back by @NWSTampaBay: 2/5
Recently, a system was developed that automates the process and can be controlled remotely. @NWSFairbanks shows one off here: . There is also some additional info here: bit.ly/2SOHgF4 3/5
Such systems have been deployed across Alaska over the past several years, but 2 weeks ago Del Rio became the first location in the Continental US to have one become operational. See one of our test launches here: . 4/5
This system will allow us remote control from our office and more easily launch "special" soundings (those which occur outside the typical 0 UTC and 12 UTC flight times) to help assess the atmosphere ahead of significant weather. 5/5
