One of the Weather Observers is a red hot Barrister so I had the second coffee since leaving Oz and settled in for a chat! Back out there at 16:00 as they release weather balloons every twelve hours (04:15 and 16:15). I was even able to do the release but only after donning the special flash suit due to the extraordinary dangers that I would face!
The weather balloons are filled with hydrogen just like the Hindenburg Airship (blew up in 1937) which is made on site. They are highly flammable as a result so there are some safety procedures to follow. This is where the Hydrogen is made by passing an electrical current through water to seperate it out into oxygen and hydrogen (the O2 is released and the H2 used in the balloons).
Here is one of the forecasters, forecasting for the Casa aircraft that are trying to get about with the Treaty Inspection Team at the moment.
This is one of the observers who useually releases the ballons and monitor its travel up into the atmosphere for about 1½ hours and have GPS, air pressure, air temp, wind speed and some other stuff to record. The balloons are not that expensive but by the time the unit is on the bottom it is all up about $400 a shot ($400 x 2 per day x 365 days a year x 40 years of observations or more = $11,680,000 to date which does not account for the 2-6 that don’t work or get caught up on stuff or just smash).
This is their building and surrounds on the station.
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