How Next-Gen Weather Balloons Are Filling the Gaps in Global Forecasting
Every morning, millions of people check their weather app before deciding what to wear, whether to book an outdoor trip, or when to go for a run. But behind that simple forecast lies a much bigger problem: 85% of the atmosphere remains under-observed.
The biggest source of error? Tracking data over oceans. With no sensors or infrastructure in remote regions, forecasters are essentially working blind over most of the planet’s surface. That makes forecasts unreliable for predicting day-to-day weather and extreme events.
John Dean is the Co-founder and CEO of WindBorne, a company building next-generation weather balloons and an AI-powered forecasting layer to improve global weather predictions.
“If you want to know what the weather is going to be over the next two weeks, you have to know what the current weather is everywhere in the globe.[...] because if you wanted the weather a week from now, the weather over the ocean is going to influence that.”
WindBorne is designing weather balloons that are capable of collecting data anywhere in the world. They fly autonomously over oceans, where traditional weather observation doesn’t reach.
Historically, weather balloons only live for a few hours before bursting in the atmosphere. That resulted in limited forecasting. WindBorne solves this by building long-duration balloons that fly for two weeks rather than two hours.
“We’re flying balloons all over the globe. We fly them into hurricanes. We fly them into atmospheric rivers. And so, this gives us ground truth data that we use to initialize weather models and create more accurate weather forecasts.”
Listen to this episode of Inevitable to learn how WindBorne’s weather balloons are re-shaping the future of global forecasting and delivering more accurate information.
🎥 The Lean Back
How weather balloons are fixing the world’s forecasting problem.
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