Residents find weather balloon in yard

By Ron Giofu

A homeowner on Bastien St. in Amherstburg made a rather interesting discovery last week.

A weather balloon landed in Tom Delmore’s yard with the string and electronic equipment attached to it extending into neighbouring yards as well. Delmore said an electronic weather instrument was discovered two houses down on Wigle St. with string extending into neighbour Lyle Dorie’s yard.

“I saw (the balloon) on the ground,” commented Delmore. “I looked out of my kitchen window and thought ‘what the heck is it.’”

The weather instrument had the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association) logo on it as well as a sentence that it was part of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The National Weather Service confirmed it was one of their balloons, and that it originated in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The National Weather Service’s Detroit office stated via Twitter that weather balloons can sometimes develop pin holes that cause them to slowly leak and descend, with this balloon making up to 17,000-feet.

Dorie said the instrument said to contact the local fire department if found, so that is what they did. They called the Amherstburg Fire Department to ensure it was properly disposed of.

Delmore added they weren’t sure originally what to do with it, after making the discovery around 8:45 last Wednesday morning.

“That’s when I first noticed it,” he said.

According to Dave Kook at the NWS Detroit office: “It was a balloon we launched Wednesday (3/15/23) at 7 a.m. The balloon has a small instrument package called a radiosonde tied to it. We launch these twice a day, every day, to collect data on the atmosphere such as temperature, pressure, humidity, wind speed and direction from the ground up to about 100,000ft. That data is then ingested into the computer models used to forecast weather. There are 92 locations in the U.S. and 900 across the world that launch these balloons twice daily.”

Deputy Fire Chief Ron Meloche said he wasn’t sure what to expect when the call came in as he had never dealt with an errant weather balloon before. He said he saw pictures of them but this was the first time he ever saw and handled one. He compared the texture to “a heavy rubber ball.”

“It’s a large balloon,” he said. “They travel at very high altitudes.”

After researching it, Meloche said the balloons are usually filled with hydrogen or helium with this one being filled with hydrogen. He said they didn’t want to disburse the gas at the homeowner’s property, so they took it back to the fire hall and released the gas there while wearing a breathing apparatus so they wouldn’t inhale the gas. He added there was a “very low quantity” of hydrogen in the balloon when it was finally deflated.

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