MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan -- Marines from station weather and forecasting sent up a weather balloon with a brand new piece of technology at the seawall here Oct. 19.
The new RadioSonde-92 GPS system replaced the old RS-80 system, which has been the military’s system for years.
“A Rawinsonde is a piece of equipment which attaches to a balloon and goes into the atmosphere to send us back information, so we may make a proper forecast,” said Gunnery Sgt. Willie B. Paris, Headquarters and Headquarters Squardron meteorology oceanography training staff noncommissioned officer.
The Rawinsonde sends back information over a radio frequency in order to minimize as much interference as possible.
“The Rawinsonde can send back information such as wind speed, wind direction, the general amount of wind, temperature, atmospheric pressure and other pieces of information,” said Paris.
This data allows Marines the opportunity to forecast weather and understand atmospheric stablity.
“We haven’t done our own launches here in years for many reasons,” said Warrant Officer Dante Rakestraw, H&HS METOC Officer.
Lately, weather Marines haven’t used Rawinsonde due to the amount of information readily available through the internet. Because of a new system called Meteorological Mobile Facilities (R) military personnel here weren’t able to acquire the new Rawinsonde, said Rakestraw.
“We usually only need the Rawinsonde to go up to about 30,000 feet, but they can go all the way up to 70,000 feet above sea level,” said Rakestraw.
Weather Marines need these Rawinsonde to travel to approximately the height of the jet stream in order to retrieve the most valuable information. As the balloon lifts the Rawinsonde into the air, the Rawinsonde is constantly picking up data and sending it back.
“As they travel up in the atmosphere the air expands and a 300 gram balloon can become the size of a small house before it bursts,” said Rakestraw.
As this technology progresses, it allows not only the weight of the Rawinsonde to decrease, but also their size.
“The old sonde was like a two by two box and the new ones now are just tiny,” said Cpl. Stephen M. Hering, an H&HS aviation meteorologist technician.
With the technology shrinking, sondes are easier to carry and launch.
Hering says there have been instances from when launching three balloons at a time was necessary because the old Rawinsonde were so heavy, but now only one balloon for each sonde is needed.
While deployed, Rawinsonde are used much more often and may be the only source of weather information which is available.
“While deployed these sonds will be launched twice a day on average,” said Paris.
Since the Rawinsonde can only be used once, it is of high importance for them to work correctly.
“One day in a deployed environment, (such as) Afghanistan, they will be working out of a METOC van and when you don’t have the amount of data as we have here on station, then you will need to be able to launch these Rawinsonde reliably,” said Paris.
Marines still send up Rawinsonde in deployed environments every day.
“While I was deployed we sent up 2 sondes a day and we worked closely with the British,” said Staff Sgt. Geremy Rodriguez, H&HS METOC forecaster.
“We would send up the one at night and they would send up one in the morning. With this new technology they could track our Rawinsonde and we could track theirs.”
This new technology is helping Marines in the field to detect weather changes and save lives.
“With the new technology sending up Rawinsonde is easy, as long as you plug in the battery and know (the equipment) is talking then you’re good,” said Rodriguez.
The new technology is still on back order for fleet bases but new equipment hasn’t had major problems or defects arise since its release in the field.