Tara Howard of Kosciusko recently found a weather balloon caught in a tree in a brush pile in her yard on Center Road.
Thinking it was a kite, she went to pull it down.
“When I realized it wasn’t a kite, I was a little nervous to pull it down,” she said. But she did and read the tag that said to contact local law enforcement if the balloon is found.
Howard called a relative in the Attala County Sheriff’s Department who, in turn, contacted Emergency Management Director Danny Townsend.
Townsend took the proper steps to mail the balloon back to the local National Weather Service located in Flowood.
According to the information on the balloon, it was released on Dec. 9, 2019.
According to staff at the National Weather Service office in Jackson, weather balloons are launched twice a day at the same time every day.
Balloons measure temperature and relative humidity as they rise to the top of the atmosphere. As a result, they provide a vertical profile of the atmosphere and are constantly sending back data. The data is then used for models when forecasting weather.
