Dropsonde: The Workhorse of Hurricane Hunting

SCIENCE -- September 25, 2012 at 10:15 AM EDT

Dropsonde: The Workhorse of Hurricane Hunting

Dropsondes are lightweight cylinders loaded with sensors that are ejected from airplanes into powerful hurricanes. As they fall, they gather data about the air pressure, temperature, humidity, windspeed and wind direction.

Science correspondent Miles O'Brien reports on a team at the National Center for Atmospheric Research that uses these "sondes" to take vertical slices of the atmosphere.
This video takes a look at that technology, how it's used to study storm patterns as well as the 600 dropsondes deployed to map the Antarctic atmosphere.

*For the record, the National Science Foundation is an underwriter of the NewsHour.

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