Weathering the Ups & Downs

I honestly cannot believe this is my final blog for the semester, and freshman year has certainly been quite a ride!  That being said, it's pretty hard to wrap my brain around just how much I have learned since starting South.  From navigating a new campus to learning about types of precipitation in Introduction to Meteorology, if there is one thing that I have enjoyed learning about the most since this semester started, it would honestly have to be weather balloons.  Long story short, a weather balloon looks like this:

Meteorologists send these balloons into the atmosphere, and instruments attached to the balloons record weather information (temperature, wind speeds, etc.) as the balloon ascends.  The data collected is then used to help with forecasting and research purposes.  This semester, I was actually fortunate enough to help launch a few weather balloons because South's Meteorology program participated in a research project called Vortex Southeast, which is dedicated to tornado research.  Even though I was only able to help out with a few launches, it was still a lot of fun, and the experience was completely worth it!