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Weather Kites
Thu Jul 31, 2003
Listen in RealAudio 
The world of weather observation is definitely high tech, with radar, satellites and
computers. The technological breakthroughs of the last fifty years have allowed us to
essentially, as Judi Collins wrote, look at clouds from both sides now. Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton,
and this is The Weather Notebook.
Today's technology, of course, wasn't always available. Around the turn of the century, the
advanced way of exploring the upper atmosphere was by flying kites. In the 1890's,
twenty-seven kite stations were set up around the country by the U.S. Weather Bureau. A
typical weather kite was a black and white box kite about the size of a small truck, tethered
with piano wire. Recording weather instruments were attached at intervals along the wire as
the kite pulled away. According to Sandra Wiche in an article for Weatherwise Magazine, a
starter kite would be flown first to help get the big kite of the ground, then additional
kites were attached as the piano wire kite payed out to a distance of up to 10 miles. The US
altitude record for kites was set by one of these weather kites at, appropriately enough,
Mount Weather, West Virginia in 1907. It reached 23,000 feet, over four miles high.
The set up for these kites consisted of a rotating house that contained a one ton spool of
piano wire. By the late twenties, balloons were gathering the same data, making the weather
kites obsolete. In 1933 the last U.S. kite station Ellendale, North Dakota closed for good.
Today, the balloons are joined by satellites and radar, which paint a more complete
atmospheric picture.
The Weather Notebook is produced by the Mount Washington Observatory. funded by The National
Science Foundation, and underwritten by Subaru of America. Find us on the web at
www.weathernotebook.org.
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