Joe Pica: After 80 years, Weather Service automates weather balloon launches to gather data in Alaska

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Many agencies are looking to automate certain processes to cut down on costs, and the National Weather Service has found a way to automate one of its most basic data gathering missions. New technology now allows NWS to automate weather balloon launches in remote areas of Alaska. For the last 80 years, NWS workers have had to manually launch them to gather important data for making weather predictions.

To hear how this new technique will improve operations while also helping the agency’s budget, Federal News Radio’s Eric White spoke with Joe Pica, director of observations for NWS, on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

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