FAIRBANKS — Workers at 13 Alaska sites are supposed to release balloons twice a day that collect data on temperature, pressure and wind, but the National Weather Service has reduced weather balloon launches in rural Alaska, affecting the quality of forecasts.
Launches have been limited in recent years by staffing shortages and by an overtime policy change in August, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported.
The Weather Service has launched 28 percent fewer balloons at six of the remote sites in order to keep employees to a 40-hour work week.
The loss of any input data affects weather models, but the degree it hurts the accuracy of forecasts isn’t easy to quantify.
The Weather Service supplements data from weather balloons with data from satellites, Weather Service Alaska Region Director Carven Scott said.
Before August, Weather Service employees at understaffed remote locations often worked for weeks in a row without a day off. About 30 percent of positions are vacant at remote weather stations statewide. An employee in McGrath in the western Interior once worked five months consecutively.
Scott said he limited work weeks to 40 hours per week — resulting in fewer balloon launches — because of employee complaints about forced overtime.
“I received several complaints from (Weather Service office) personnel and Mobile Met Tech Team members (deployed from Anchorage) over a period of weeks because of denied leave and the need to come to Anchorage for doctor and dental appointments,” Scott said in an email. “Until my decision to standardize on the 40-hour schedule, employees were required to work overtime shifts in order to ensure no (upper-air observation) flights were missed.”
