Automation initiatives drive Weather Service push to focus staff in urban offices

National Weather Service will automate weather balloon launches in Alaska to concentrate staff at the agency’s urban forecast offices.

The first automated weather balloon launcher came online last fall in Kodiak, and the second recently went into service in Fairbanks.

A weather balloon rises over the new autolauncher in Fairbanks (Photo courtesy Ed Plumb/National Weather Service)

Meteorologist Ed Plumb describes automated steps leading up to a balloon launch.

“This beeping starts about 15 minutes before the balloons can release, and this is indicating that there’s hydrogen now flowing and filling up the balloon,” Plumb said.

The $700,000 robot sits on a gravel pad near Fairbanks International Airport, the same location where twice daily launches have occurred for decades.

The new automated launcher responds to the push of a button at the Weather Service’s Fairbanks headquarters five miles away, sparing staff from twice trips to manually deploy the atmospheric data gathering balloons.

Plumb said meteorologists will use the freed up time to work more closely with government agency and industry customers.

”The Weather Service has sorta shifted its paradigm,” Plump said. “This is just a little piece where it gives us more time to do that sort of mission.”

“Our plan is to reinvest these positions and re-invest the people,” Weather Service regional director Carven Scott said.

Scott said positions eliminated by auto launchers at 11 rural Weather Service offices will shift to forecast stations in Fairbanks, Anchorage and Juneau.

“We will lose some capability, some operation capability, at these WSOs,” Scott said.

Jim Brader is a longtime agency meteorologist in Fairbanks, and Alaska chair of the National Weather Service Employees Organization, which takes issue with the automation and downsizing of rural Alaska offices.

”We basically are spending $17 million in Alaska to outsource 30 jobs across rural Alaska, where jobs are highly needed, and reducing services to rural Alaska too.” 

The Weather Service’s Scott counters that the balloon launch technology needs upgrade and that it’s a struggle to staff the agency’s remote offices.

”It’s much easier to fill a position in Fairbanks, Juneau and Anchorage than it is in Kotzebue or McGrath,” Scott said.

Scott emphasizes that the Weather Service is not abandoning rural Alaska, and plans to keep one paid caretaker at each station, and train up a base of local volunteer observers.

”To help us have eyes in the villages, to report on a severe weather event,” Scott said.

Additional stations scheduled for downsize and transition to automated weather balloon launchers this summer include those at Annette Island, Yakutat, Utqiagvik, St. Paul and Bethel.

Alaska’s six other stations will convert the following year.

KUAC - Fairbanks

KUAC is our partner station in Fairbanks. KTOO collaborates with partners across the state to cover important news and to share stories with our audiences.

Sign up for The Signal

Top Alaska stories delivered to your inbox every week

Site notifications
Update notification options
Subscribe to notifications