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[cheerful music]

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Zounas: Our primary mission is to support
launch operations here at Vandenberg.

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We help with forecasting the transport
of fuels and equipment

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into building the rocket .

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We help decision makers determine
when is a good time to launch the rocket.

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And then the day of we're always there
by their side throughout the count

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to determine if it's safe for them
to eventually launch the rocket.

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Nichols: We monitor this 99,000 acre
range around the clock.

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Essentially, we look out for things
like watches, warnings, advisories,

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kind of the things that you would imagine

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National Weather Service Office
doing that.

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That kind of comes from our range weather
forecaster.

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They're the ones that tell us
if there's going to be strong winds or

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if we have to issue a watch for lightning,
things like that.

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Zounas: Clear skies, no wind that is optimal.

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However, that occurs like 10% of the time.

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Normally there is some cloud cover
which doesn't really affect the launch,

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but you can't see it
and everyone wants to see the launch.

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But there's almost always
some level of wind

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and depending on the rocket
and the location,

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they can have major impacts
to being able to launch.

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Nichols: Out here, it is rocket science.

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And so we have to be very, very precise.

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Some of these rockets are sensitive

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to the nearest mile per hour,
to the nearest degree of temperature.

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The nearest wind direction,
small changes in wind direction

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and wind speed have a huge impact on
on the space lift mission here.

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So we have to be very good at what we do.

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Zounas: We are fortunate to have one of the most

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robust instrument
networks on any military installation.

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We've got 26 different wind towers with
over 200 different instruments altogether.

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To have access to all that data helps us
make an enormous amount of decisions,

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especially for a base
as large as this one.

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99,000 acres is a lot to cover
and be able to forecast for.

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Nichols: So this is the Upper Air Observatory
where we fill our balloons

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with helium, attach
our radiosondes to them and release them.

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Zounas: Balloons are really important
specifically for range safety.

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Their models determine where the debris
will fall if a mishap occurs

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or what will happen to the shockwave
from that blast.

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Day: This is a Lockheed Martin LMS6
radiosonde, and basically it measures

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the temperature, wind speed, pressure
and humidity up in the upper air.

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These these will typically go
between 100 and 120,000 feet.

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Typically, when it gets up there,
the balloons tend to expand

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to about the size of like a Greyhound
bus or so.

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So they actually get quite large. 

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Zounas: A good portion
of the reason why our weather models

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are actually quite good for large scale
features is because of satellites.

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We ingest a lot of data into our models
to run them.

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If you look to the west,
there's a lot of water.

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Pacific Ocean is large
and there's no balloons being launched

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from there,
no consistent surface observations.

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So you have a large area of data-sparse
surface and atmosphere.

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So the way that we get around it
as a career field

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is we ingest satellite data
into our models to fill in the gaps.

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It's not perfect, but the more satellites
we get and the better satellites

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we get, the better
we can expect our models to perform

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because there should be more data
to actually compute with.

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Nichols: I believe that the weather
should always be respected

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but never feared much in the same way
that you would think about wild animals.

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Wild animals are so cool to look at, but
you don't want to get tangled up with one.

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Especially if you're not a professional
and you don't know what you're doing.

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Zounas: This is my favorite job
I have ever worked.

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I'm a weather nerd.

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I love weather.
I've loved weather since I was 11.

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I know we don't get tornadoes
like in the Midwest or big thunderstorms

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like in the Cape.

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But it is very interesting to focus on

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just how the terrain can affect
weather and operations.

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Nichols: For me to be able to contribute
to the mission of providing

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weather and climate and all those things
to not just the military

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but the world at large,
that's that's very humbling.

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And any way that I can help contribute
to the advancement of meteorology

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and climatology as a science,
I would happily do so.

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And that's the military
gave me the ability to to do forecasting.

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That's why I joined.

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They said, “hey, you want to be
a forecaster and be a weather officer and

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and do those things for the
military?” I said, “You bet.”