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All coming up right now on Alabama STEM Explorers.

Hi, and welcome back to Alabama STEM explorers.

I'm Anderson, and this is the new friend, Holly, and we're here at the National Weather Service in Birmingham, Alabama.

Hi, Anderson.

How are you today?

Good.

How are you?

Good.

Welcome to the National Weather Service in Birmingham.

What do you guys like to do here?

Well, everything we do here is directed to our core mission, which is for the protection of life and property and to help with the national economy.

Okay.

So that starts with your seven day forecast package.

So what kind of weather information do you need when you leave the house in the morning?

Just if it's sunny or rainy oorms.

Yeah.

So that's where it starts.

So we can tell you information about do you need a raincoat?

Do you need a jacket?

Do you need had?

Is it going to be super sunny today?

It's going to be hot or cold and all that information helps you live your day to day life.

And then other people take that information and use it for farming purposes, aviation, forestry departments.

And then we go to more impactful weather like your severe thunderstorms.

Oh, and like the tornado warnings that we get sometimes, things like that.

So tornado warnings and severe thunderstorm warnings come from our office here.

So how do you monitor those things?

Sure.

We have radar.

And if you look back over there, that's our radar loop.

So as storms are approaching, our radar scans the sky and we get a vertical profile of that thunderstorm and if it meet certain criteria, we issue a warning for it.

Okay.

So what was the criteria be?

Is there like a scale or like so for a severe thunderstorm, the storm has to exhibit large hail, which is greater than one inch to se damaging winds, which is greater than 58 miles per hour.

Or it could be capable of producing a tornado.

I think I went into a 72 mile per hour wind simulator and.

Did it blow you away?

It blew it.

That pretty strong winds.

Yeah.

We don't recommend anyone be outside in winds that strong.

Have you ever seen one Not while I'm outside.

That sounds not like fun, but, yeah, we have had winds that strong here in Alabama.

So what are these computers behind us?

Where are they for sure?

This is where we do our forecast.

So over my shoulder here, Nathan right now is working on our seven day forecast.

He's looking at model data, taking it all in and producing our seven day forecast package.

So are you helping out, Jim?

A little bit?

A little bit, yeah.

So all of our forecast information can be found on our Web page or on your cell phone and our local media guys use it, too.

That's cool.

So when there is bad storms, you have to stay here longer.

Yeah.

So we have two people here at all times.

We're open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

But when we have impactful weather, so severe weather or winter weather, we bring more people into the office for the shift and there'll probably be someone at every single one of these workstations.

Now, if the weather gets really bad and we have to shelter in place, we do have a storm shelter in our building and that allows us to take shelter if we're in a tornado warning and our backup office can take over sometimes when winter weather gets really bad, we have to stay here.

So we'll have people come in.

We'll have forecasters come in, bring sleeping bags, we have some cots and we'll actually have to spend the night here when roads get bad and we can't make it home because we have to be here 24 hours a day to make sure we're getting products out so everyone else can get our information.

That's really nice.

But is it fun kind of seeing you sometimes?

I mean, it sometimes it kind of wears off after a few days.

There's been times in the past where someone has to stay here for four or five days and after that it gets a little old.

And about the I saw that there was an airport next door.

So how is that?

Sure.

Yeah, we're right here at the Shelby County Airport.

And one of the main things that we do every day is we produce aviation forecast.

So that forecast is used by pilots and the ground crews at local airports.

So that they know what kind of wer they can expect and whether or not they can fly in and out of that airport that day.

Okay, that's really cool.

Yeah, it's neat.

It really helps with the ground crews as well because if there's lightning in the area, the airport has to bring everyone in so they don't get struck by lightning.

So let's use both the ground crew and for aviation piloting.

That's amazing.

And who else do you forecast to directly?

Sure, we do a fire weather forecast.

So our forestry department, we send our specialized forecasts twice a day with the fire weather parameters.

It helps them know when to do prescribed burns and when not to.

Sometimes, if it's too windy or too dry, it's not really good burning conditions and it could create wildfires.

So that's pretty dangerous.

Oh, that's cool.

Yeah.

Another thing we do is we do a lot of forecasting for local farmers.

So local farmers are really dependent on weather conditions.

So is it going to be too cold?

Do they need to bring in equipment to keep the crops warm?

And we send that forecast out sometimes directly to them, but it's also available on our Web page.

Oh, okay.

So how do you gather all the data and everything?

Sure.

We have satellites.

So those satellites are up above the earth and they're taking observations for us.

They're taking pictures and data.

All of that is sent in to the National Weather Service.

That's coupled with ground observations.

So we have ground equipment scattered across the area.

That data is combined with satellite data and it's put into what we call forecast models and forecast models, takes all the data available and tries to expand it out in time and we get our forecast data.

So it's taking what current conditions are now is trying to predict what they look like in seven days and that's how we get the forecast says that kind of like what a weather balloon does.

Yes, the weather balloons, we launch them from the ground and they take vertical measurements of the atmosphere.

They collect moisture, temperature and wind data.

And all of that goes into our forecast models.

One time we do a weather balloon at school and got lost in Lake Martin.

Yes, they do.

They do get lost.

Sometimes ours will go up and eventually it has to come down.

Right.

The balloon will get so large that it burst and it's actually using a GPS radio signal to send all the data back to our office immediately.

And eventually the equipment does fall down to the ground.

Sometimes we get it back, sometimes we don't help.

So what kind of education did you get a through?

Sure.

So everyone in the weather service, you get a bachelor's degree in meteorology or atmospheric science.

So with that degree comes a lot of math and physics, a lot of science, and then you can go on to get a master's or even your Ph.D. if you wanted to.

So for me, in high school, I started out taking a lot of math and science, and then when I got to college, already had a good, solid foundation in that to get my bachelor's in meteorology.

Oh, okay.

And so everyone here at the Weather Service has a degree in meteorology, and there's a couple of different paths you can take when you're in college.

You can become an operational meteorologist, you can go to private sector jobs or you can go into broadcast meteorology.

So there's a lot of different avenues that you can take and weather is always going to be here.

So we have a much greater need for meteorologists in the future as well.

So I like talking and doing that kind of stuff.

So with that kind of going on with meteorology, maybe like a weather forecaster, absolutely.

We do a lot of online briefings here.

We do a lot of briefings for our core partners.

So not something that we did when I first started out in the Weather Service.

But we've kind of got into that more communication and broadcasting aspect.

You can certainly take a broadcasting route and be on TV some day.

Oh, so what about thunderstorms?

Sure.

So thunderstorms develop when we have three main ingredients.

So we need moisture and we're pretty close to the Gulf Coast here.

So moisture usually isn't a problem.

We need lift which forces the air upward.

And a lot of times we get that ahead of what we call a cold front and then we need instability and we usually have that here as well.

So all those things combine and we get what we call an updraft and that's the air lifts, it cools and forms a thunderstorm.

If those thunderstorms grow strong enough, they can become severe thunderstorms.

And if the wind structure is just right, we can also get tornadoes.

And what about snow?

Well, sometimes we can get snow here, but usually it's a little bit too warm.

So, for example, the recent snowstorm out in California, that system's actually going to move across the country in the next couple of days, but it's going to warm up.

It's going to call it's what we call modifying.

So the air mass is going to modify.

It's going to get too warm.

So we'll get rain and thunderstorms, but we won't get any snow this time.

So I can't not go to school.

Unfortunate not not this time, at least not because of snow.

Now, sometimes we do get snow and a lot of times it's because we have cold air and we get that moisture.

And so we get snow or ice.

And ice tends to be a much bigger impact here in Alabama because it can shut down transportation and commerce routes.

And that's kind of what we're working to let people know about so they can prepare for that ahead of time.

And what about getting off school early for weather problems?

Sure.

Sometimes schools choose to dismiss early because there's a risk of storms and that's just has your safety in mind.

You know, sometimes we want to make sure the bus routes have time to get all the students home before bad weather arrives.

So we dismiss early sometimes that's great.

Now sometimes when storms are back to our west and Mississippi, they'll look really strong, really severe.

We have a lot of rain with them and unfortunately they weaken.

So Air kind of modifies.

We lose some of that instability that I spoke about and the storms weaken before they get here.

And that happens a lot.

Sometimes they increase if there's rain and storms out in Mississippi and they're moving into an air mass that we call is more unstable, they can get stronger.

And that's when we start issuing our watches and our warnings.

Oh, okay.

So what about protection during this storm?

Sure.

So storm safety preparedness is very important and we recommend everyone have their storm safety kit.

So as severe weather is approaching, when a watch is issued, recommend that you get that kit together and be prepared to seek shelter.

So do you have a helmet to wear?

Oh, yeah.

James Spann gave me one..

Yes.

So when a warning is issued, when a tornado or severe thunderstorm warning is issued and you need to take shelter in your home, you should go to the lowest level of your house or the most interior small room, like a bathroom or a small hallway.

Take your helmet and put it on and maybe have a whistle with you in case there is storm damage.

Someone can hear you and make sure you wear hard soled shoes because you have to walk through some debris.

Most of the time injuries occur because of falling debris on your house rather than the tornado or strong winds themselves.

Would you recommend like a radio to.

Yes, always have your weather radio with you or a way to get information.

That way you can keep up with the latest weather updates, specifically knowing when the warning is canceled and it's okay to come out of your shelter.

And that's when you're here all night.

Yeah, that's when we stay here all night.

We're here all the time, especially during severe weather.

And we'll stay right here until the threat has passed, making sure everyone has the most accurate information possible.

This amazing.

Thank you.

Earlier we were talking about weather balloons.

Are they everywhere?

So there's 122 forecast offices across the Weather Service, across the country and about 70 of those launch weather balloons on a daily basis.

So twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening, a balloon will go up.

And we talked about earlier how that balloon collects the data and sends it back to the office and helps us make our forecast.

This is my new friend Tara, and she is going to show us a little bit about the weather balloons.

Yes, I am.

And the first thing that we do when we do the weather balloon is actually we have to make sure that the radio which is the weather instrument, is actually set up and ready to go and is working properly before we go out to the inflation shelter to do the balloon part.

So here we already have our software opened up, so we're just going to plug the on in here and we're going to go through the motions to make sure that we're getting that it's working properly and we're going to make sure we're gathering data before we go outside.

So it's going through the different frequencies to see what it's picking up at each frequency.

So we're going to make sure that it is picking it up here at the 405.61 frequency.

We're going to let it go through just a couple of times to make sure we're good and that nothing is interfering with that.

And it looks like we're pretty good at this point.

So we're we've got that taken care of.

So now we've got to make sure that we have our observation data in there and our temperature and humidity.

This is from our observing system that's just over here, just outside the office.

So we're going to find our temperature and our relative humidity and we are going to enter that data in here.

So we have a current temperature of 25.6.

Let's see.

Okay.

So we have our surface observation information in there and we're going to add some cloud data here.

Looks like it's pretty scattered out there at this point.

So what is cloud information?

It's basically asking you how much sky cover there is and that's done in octave.

So an eighth and what type of clouds are there?

Low clouds, middle clouds, high clouds.

And then what?

The height with the base of the clouds.

So once we've got that down, we come in here.

This is just a lot of making sure that you have the correct information for the radio and our lift which we'll talk about when we get out to the inflation building and present weather.

That's the one of the main things that you want to look at here.

And of course, it hasn't rained or anything like that.

So we're we're good there.

Now that we have everything entered into our computer system, we're actually going to turn the on.

So we'll watch these little lights blink right here.

Oh, okay.

Okay, now we can.

It's flashing red at the moment, but hopefully that will become green before we go out to launch the so now we can unplug it.

So now we're going to go to the visualization tab and we're going to look at our sensor data.

So here you can see the data that is that it is picking up right now.

So we are receiving data.

And as you can see down here, all of our little lights are green, so we should be good to go.

So at this point, we can go out to the inflation building and inflate the balloon and hopefully while we're out there, we'll get our little green light that we're looking for and we'll be good to go.

Okay, let's go.

So let's go.

So where are we now?

We are in our inflatioelter.

And my coworker, Gerald, he's actually as he goes through the process of inflating the balloon and getting the train tied together, I will kind of go through and kind of describe the process.

So here he's taking out the balloon.

And as you can see, it's a pretty large balloon, much larger than your typical party sized balloon.

So, yeah, it's about an arm's length in diameter right now.

So he's hooking it up and we feel ours with hydrogen.

And that takes about 10 minutes or so to inflate.

We talked about earlier here is our which is very small, and this is just one example of how technology has changed.

And this has just been in the last few years.

This just a couple of years ago, we were using that were this size, which is a little bit smaller than your typical shoe box size.

And now we are down to something that can easily fit in the palm of your hand.

Oh, so it just kind of fills itself up with the hydrogen and then we'll start to like it go up.

Yes.

As we stand here and it continues to inflate, you'll see it start to rise up.

So we typically on a day like today, we would use about 1150 grams of hydrogen.

If we are expecting rainy conditions or any icing higher up, then we can put additional lift in the balloon and we would put the little weight that you see here on here as well.

And that would take a longer process to inflate that.

As for more hydrogen, yes.

So as we mentioned earlier, we have to inflate the balloon.

And we also have our radius on the other part of our train, as we call it, is the parachute.

And just your typical little small parachute like this.

But what the parachute does is once the balloon reaches a certain height, it will burst.

Okay.

When it and then when it does that, the parachute will open and it will allow the radio size to float gently back down to the earth with the parachute.

Work on me.

I know.

some people will ask what happened to the parachute doesn't open.

Well, it's it's designed it's made out of sour foam.

So it's still small and it's very light.

So it shouldn't cause any problems when it lands with the parachute.

Most of the time it does deploy and it opens and it allows us to float gently back to the earth.

Now, someone might say, but they're walking out in their field or something and they find a radius on what do they do with it?

Well, they used to be able to send it in to recycle, but that that is no longer an option at this point.

So if someone were to find this, they could just simply toss it away.

Or if there a weather enthusiast like we have a lot of people around here like that, they can just keep it as a souvenir, put it on their bookshelf or whatnot.

So but going back to the balloon here and as far as the birth type, on a typical day like this, the balloon will go up to at least 100 to 110000 feet.

Whoa.

Before it burst.

Yes, that is correct.

That's crazy.

It's pretty big right now.

Yes, it is.

And once it reaches the by the time that it gets to where it bursts, it will be about the size of a small house, about 20 to 25 feet in diameter.

So much larger than what you see here.

So it gets bigger as it.

Yes.

And the reason that it does that is because as it gets higher into the atmosphere, there's less pressure being exerted on the balloon.

So it will gradually grow bigger and bigger.

Oh, okay.

That's really cool.

So are you ready to take it on launch again?

We have just a few more things that we have to do first before we can take it out.

Carol, once it finishes inflating, he will continue tying it all and turn off the flow of hydrogen.

And we'll make sure that the whole entire train, which is the balloon, the parachute and the radius on, are all attached properly and securely.

And then we'll be ready to head outside.

Okay.

You can tell it has got enough hydrogen in its race, 1150 grams of hydrogen that we needed.

So Gerald has set the hydrogen float off and he is now making sure that the balloon is securely tied off because we definitely don't want any hydrogen to start leaking out.

Oh yeah.

So he's going to make sure that's tied securely and make sure that the entire train, the balloon, the parachute and the radio station are ready to go.

So once he this is going to take him just a moment to fully get this secured and the whole entire train put together.

So once he does that, then we will open up our large door here, which is just behind the camera, and we will pull the string out to the specified length, which is roughly between 70 and 100 feet.

And then once that is done, then we will attach it to the and we'll be ready to go.

Okay.

And then this and safety rules over here, too.

So this is definitely not a do at home activity.

No, it is not.

And there are certain safety rules, as you can see here, that we have to follow, of course, because we're using hydrogen.

You have to make sure that there's no smoking or anything like that within 25 feet of the building.

And you have ttch out for static electricity, too, which is why we have the grounding mat here on the floor as well.

So that's a bigger problem during the winter months.

But but yes, definitely a lot of safety goes into what we do out here because we use hydrogen.

Oh, yeah.

So I believe Gerald has it tied off and ready to go at this point.

So we will open up our door and get that 70 to 100 feet of string laid out.

And we will get the radio sign attached and we'll be ready for watching.

Okay.

So now, as you can see, Gerald has our entire train put together.

So we are good to take it outside and launch it.

So let's go now.

And as you can tell, we have a little bit of wind today.

Oh, yeah.

So we'll have to make sure that we have enough clearance for the few obstructions that we have here to make sure that the and balloon will clear those obstructions.

So we're going to walk a little way down the little path here.

And since we are at an airport, we typically we need to look both directions to ensure that there are no incoming or outgoing aircraft.

So thankfully, it's pretty quiet at the airport today.

So it looks like we're pretty good.

So you just let me know when you're ready and I'll let go and then you can take care of the part.

I'm ready.

You're ready.

Okay, so on a count of three, three, two, one, I just like go.

Yes.

And there it goes.

Well, now that the balloon is in the air, we're already receiving data at our ground station and computer there in our office.

And that information is coming in every second.

And it will paint a vertical profile of what the atmosphere is like.

So just like the surface observations that we have along the ground, which gives us a sort of a horizontal picture of what things are like, this actually gives us a vertical picture of the atmosphere and I can barely see it anymore.

Yes, it's already out of sight.

And again, the flight will last about an hour and a half.

So about an hour and a half from now, we'll expect the balloon to burst.

And again, it stops transmitting.

We start receiving the data at that point.

Once it has detected a balloon burst.

And so therefore, we do not know exactly where it lands.

But again, like I said, if someone finds that they can keep it or toss it either way, but it is a harmless weather instrument.

So we go in and see the data.

So let's go take a look.

Okay, now we're back inside.

We just launch the weather balloon.

So we've made it back inside to see the data that is coming in from the balloon.

And as I mentioned earlier, we receive the data from that about once every second.

So as you can see here, we have a new line of data coming in, like I said, roughly every second here.

So what this does is it uses this data and it plots it vertically so that we can see the vertical profile.

So how is the temperature and the dew point behaving as we go vertically higher up into the atmosphere?

So right here, this is what we call the skew or the sounding.

So the blue line here is showing us the temperature curve.

Okay.

And then the sort of yellow orange color line is showing us the dew point temperature.

And I know it's a little bit hard to see, but over here on the far right side, you'll see what we call the wind barbs that are showing us the direction and the wind speed of the winds as you get higher up into the atmosphere.

So it we will continue to have data coming in.

This plot will continue along until the balloon burst and at different intervals during the flight.

We will send that information to the modeling center there in Washington, DC.

And they use this information hours along with all of the other Weather Service offices across the country, the roughly 70 of them that do the balloons and that information will be put into the forecast models.

Oh, okay.

So and then that's how we get our forecast data here at the Weather Service.

Oh, wow.

Yes.

So without without the balloons, we wouldn't be able to have the forecast model data to look at to to create a forecast.

So that very, very important.

And I mentioned about 70 offices or so do the balloon.

Perhaps one reason not all of them do is because it is a little bit expensive to do it cause give or take a little bit and maybe $250 for every flight that is launched.

And so when you start adding that up, it gets to be a little bit much when you're talking 70 offices twice a day and we can launch them more than twice a day.

We a lot of times will launch them four times a day.

And that is usually at the request of the Storm Prediction Center.

SBC, ahead of a bigger severe weather event.

We can also do it ahead of winter events if we're expecting really big impacts from those and also from the Hurricane National Hurricane Center will request them from time to time to help out with the forecasting of any tropical impacts that may be expected along the Gulf Coast or the East Coast.

So these are these are very important and very vital to what we do here at the National Weather Service.

And on this side, this is just the height.

Yes, it is.

It shows you that's actually the pressure.

So it's showing you at this point, it's above 600 millibars right now.

So and you know, I mentioned earlier that it will typically burst at around 100 to 110000 feet.

That usually gets us about ten millibars.

So very, very high.

So maybe between five and ten millibars.

So do you watch the data as it comes in?

We will periodically, we'll we'll roll our chairs over here and take a peek at it just to make sure that everything is looking on track, that nothing, you know, erroneous is coming in.

But we don't really have to sit here for the entire flight.

Okay.

Thank you so much to her for letting me see.

This whole facility is amazing.

All the things that you do here and all the weather that we get to predict and help people out.

Yes.

And thank you so much for being here.

We were glad to have you.

And I hope you learned a lot while you were here.

And you are free to stop by any time.

I totally will.

And that's all for now on Alabama STEM Explorers.

See you next week.

Thanks for watching.

Alabama STEM explorers.

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