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The upper-air program remains vital for providing data to a number of entities and agencies. It serves as perhaps an antiquated method for gathering data in view of today’s modern era, but still proves to be quite effective in its mission of sampling the upper atmosphere. Of the approximately 75,000 radiosondes that are released yearly, only about 20% are found and returned for reconditioning. If you happen to be lucky enough to find a radiosonde, follow the directions on the instrument, and use the provided, pre-paid envelope to send the radiosonde back to the National Reconditioning Center.

Pre-paid Envelope to Return Found Radiosonde to the National Reconditioning Center

After the last messages are transmitted, all of the computer systems are shutdown, and will remain off until the entire process starts again 12 hours later. One last interesting note...despite all of the differences between people and governments throughout the world, every observer, no matter which continent or country they are from...we all launch our weather balloons at the same time!

Thank you for taking the time to view WFO Reno’s Upper-Air virtual tour. Please send questions or comments to Scott.McGuire@noaa.gov.

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