Spy Balloon Or Weather Balloon?: How You Can Tell The Difference

With talk of spy balloons flying about the past few weeks, the National Weather Service is making sure people know the difference between weather balloons and spy balloons.

Weather balloons are a common occurrence in Oklahoma's skies.

They are launched twice a day, at 5 a.m. and 5 p.m., with additional launches if there's a big weather system coming.

While they are similar in color to the Chinese spy balloon that was shot down near South Carolina, they are much smaller.

A spy balloon is 200 feet in diameter and a weather balloon starts off at 3 to 4 feet and can become as large as 35 feet in diameter.

Weather balloons can't travel thousands of miles like a spy balloon can because they will pop once they get to 100,000 feet, so they're only in the sky for one to two hours.

Although Norman is the only location with weather balloon launches in Oklahoma, Rick Smith, a meteorologist for the NWS, said you could see them anywhere in the state.

"The balloons are rising as they're going up, but they're also being steered by the winds," he said. "During the winter and early spring it's not uncommon to have a balloon travel 100 to 125 miles."

The equipment hanging below a weather balloon is called a radiosonde and sends important information about the atmosphere back to meteorologists.

The radiosonde will fall to the earth with a small parachute after the weather balloon pops.

So, if you see either a balloon or a small parachute in the sky, don't worry, it's just a very important part of gathering data.

And if you find a dropped radiosonde, the weather service doesn't take them back anymore, so you can keep it as a souvenir from Oklahoma's weather.