This is a log of all the radiosondes I have tracked to landing within a 20 mile radius of central Harris County. The green (✔) represent recoveries, red (✖) are unrecoverable, and orange (?) I have not attempted to recover.

Locally the most common source of radiosondes are the NWS Atlanta (Peachtree City) and NWS Birmingham offices, both of whom use the Graw DFM-17. NWS Atlanta radiosondes primarily land in the late spring, summer and early fall. NWS Birmingham radiosondes land in fall, winter, and spring when the jet stream dips into the southern United States.

2021 saw the start of the NWS transition from the Radiosonde Replacement System to the Manual Radiosonde Observation System (see my blog post about this). Locally, NWS Birmingham started the transition to the Graw DFM-17 radiosonde in December. Prior to that they had been using the Lockheed-Martin LMS-6 radiosonde.

Recovery #1

Type: Lockheed-Martin Sippican LMS6
Serial: 3654
Launch Site: NWS Birmingham
Launch Date & Time: 24 November 2021 00:00Z
Recovery Date: 24 November 2021
Recovery Location: Oakhurst Farm, West Point GA
Recovery Coordinates: 32.863560° -85.031898°
Balloon Weight: 448 grams

I manually tracked this one all the way to the ground from the Garden’s Overlook in FDR State Park. You can read about this recovery here.