June 12, 2025

The National Weather Service Weather Forecasting Office in Morristown, TN asked the Air Resources Laboratory (ARL) to help them with data to forecast an approaching, potentially severe storm on Monday. 

Weather balloons are launched twice a day from dozens of sites around the U.S. to measure conditions in the Earth’s boundary layer for weather prediction models. These observations are an essential tool for weather forecasting and are used by forecasters across the country. However, a limited number of sites launching weather balloons means there are large gaps in this network. The Weather Forecasting Office (WFO) in Morristown uses data from weather balloons launched in Nashville, located about 200 miles west of them, to forecast local weather.

 

ARL’s Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division (ATDD) in Oak Ridge, TN has a long history of launching weather balloons during field studies for research about our boundary layer and is much closer to Morristown. Because of this expertise, forecasters sometimes ask ATDD to launch a weather balloon, particularly prior to severe weather such as thunderstorms and tornadoes. These additional observations provide a real-time glimpse of the local atmosphere so they can provide the most reliable forecasts to residents in Morristown and the surrounding area.

Temple Lee, assisted by Tom Wood, Dominick Christensen, Praveena Krishnan, Mauricio Toro and Quinn Adamy, performed the weather balloon launch at 2:30 PM Eastern Time, ahead of last Monday’s evening storm.