- Weather occurs in the boundary layer from ground to a few thousand meters, but studying it is challenging due to limitations of ground stations and aircraft costs.
- Weather balloons are traditionally used but rely on wind and consume scarce helium daily.
- Drones offer an alternative, with Meteomatics' Meteobase enabling automatic launch, recovery, and data collection at various altitudes for researchers.
- Meteobase is weather-resistant, manages drone temperature, and can conduct multiple flights to monitor fast-changing conditions like fog or fronts.
- This drone system could replace labor-intensive and expensive weather balloon launches, which have been used since the 1930s and sometimes cause UFO sightings.