A Tour Of The National Weather Service!

As promised, here are some photos of my awesome time at our local National Weather Service office! There was a presentation in their Briefing Room, a tour of the operations room, their fortified tornado shelter, and they talked about all of their different instruments including radiosondes, radar, rain gauges, and ozone measurers!

The slideshow in the briefing room talked about their office, how radar works, some interesting statistics, and other very cool stuff! I do not have any pictures of that, but plenty of the other things. After that, we took a tour of their operations room, where two meteorologists that issue warnings/advisories and monitor current weather data. During hazardous/severe weather, the majority of the staff is in office monitoring the weather and issuing warnings. In there they have a computer that is broadcasting NOAA Weather Radio 24/7, and they talked about that a little bit. There is also a station where Amateur Radio operators work and take reports from SKYWARN Storm Spotters and deliver the message to the meteorologists working. After this we got a tour around the grounds, and got to see a weather balloon with a radiosonde attached. A radiosonde is an expensive instrument that measures upper air data up to about 100,000 feet in the air.

Well, enough talk. Here are the pictures you have been waiting for! Click on an image for a larger view.