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Kōrero: Weather forecasting

Weather balloons

Image
Weather balloons

Released three times a day from eight places around New Zealand, weather balloons are tracked by radar to show wind speed and direction in different levels of the atmosphere. At some of these locations, the balloons carry a box of instruments called a radiosonde, which measures temperature, pressure and humidity, and transmits the measurements back to earth.

Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi

Alexander Turnbull Library, Dominion Post Collection (PA-Group-00685)

Reference: EP/1998/0278/2A

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

Ngā whakaahua me ngā rauemi katoa o tēnei kōrero

Me pēnei te tohu i te whārang

Erick Brenstrum, Weather forecasting – Recording information, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/mi/photograph/7580/weather-balloons (accessed 25 June 2026).

He kōrero nā Erick Brenstrum, i tāngia i te 2 March 2009, updated 1 June 2016.

Comments

Steve
02 December 2014
At 1300 hrs on 2/12/14 several of us saw what we thought to be a weather balloon above the Te Kowhai area in the Waikato. It was very large and traveled slowly in a North East direction. Was that one of yours?