Launching a Meteorological Balloon with South Pole Meteorologist Phillip Marzette

The weather here at the South Pole is intense – one day it’s crazy storms, the next day it’s sunny and nice – and it’s always cold. Detailed weather observation and reporting happens daily here, and the man in charge of it all is Meterologist Phillip Marzette.

The other day, Phil let me tag along and help him launch a weather balloon carrying Radiosonde 15 miles into the atmosphere. During its flight, the Radiosonde took continuous atmospheric and position measurements, and relayed them to us on the ground. Here’s the video of the setup and launch procedure.