While people were looking up at the Total Solar Eclipse Monday, a sophisticated weather instrument was coming down, and it wasn’t supposed to.
Lorain police issued an alert asking the public to keep an eye out for a lost eclipse weather device called a high-altitude weather kit that could wash up on the shore.
According to Purdue University’s web page, it appears they didn’t launch your basic weather balloon, but instead, it’s a 10-foot weather kit version of a weather balloon sending it, “into the stratosphere to see how various payloads react to the different altitudes, heat, and cold during the eclipse.”
“While people from around the world flocked to the City of Lorain to watch the solar eclipse, our friends at Purdue University and NearSpace Education launched a weather balloon to capture important data about the eclipse for educational purposes,” Lorain police said.
“Unfortunately, the weather balloon went down in Lake Erie, just off the coast of Lorain (Lat. 41.5391; Lon. -82.2045) at 5:40 p.m. on the day of the eclipse. We are asking that anyone who may have come across the weather balloon, or the payloads attached to it, or knows anyone who has, please contact Lt. Morris at (440) 204-2570 so that the equipment can be returned to our friends at Purdue University and the data can be used to educate our public for years to come,” police wrote.