Long-Duration Weather Balloon Observations and Their Impacts on Forecasts

WindBorne Systems has developed a novel balloon-based observation system, enabling constellations of balloons to be flown throughout the troposphere for extended periods of time. Each balloon can fly for up to 16 days while remotely directed to ascend and descend from a few hundred meters above the earth surface to the lower stratosphere, collecting vertical profiles of pressure, temperature, humidity, wind speed, and wind direction. During summer and fall of 2022, WindBorne launched 85 balloons in the tropical Atlantic and 84 balloons in the Arctic. NOAA EMC assessed the impact of the observations by running observation simulation experiments (OSEs) using the Global Forecast System covering the 2 month observation period. An overview of the benefit from assimilating WindBorne observations will be provided. Further, two case studies will be presented. The first will show the WindBorne observations collected in the environment surrounding Hurricane Fiona and the impacts of those observations on retrospective forecasts. The second case study will focus on the observations collected within and near an Arctic cyclone and associated tropospheric polar vortex, and the impact those observations had on the forecast. Future plans for continuous collection of observations using constellations of WindBorne balloons will also be presented.