Balloon Life,May 2000

12

When Kevin Uliassi launched the J. Renee
on his second attempt to be the first to fly
solo around the world in a balloon, it was
the beginning of a great adventure. How-
ever, for his meteorology team, headed by
Lou Billones and the staff of Windsong
Services, Inc., the launch signaled the end
of many months of preflight planning
during which weather was only one of
their concerns. Indeed, for the fight to be
asuccess themet team had to successfully
solve a difficult equation, one that was
part capabilities, part weather, and part
politics.

SettingParameters
“Beforeyoucanbeginthetaskof
developingaglobalforecastfor aflight
likeKevin’s,thefirstthingwehaveto
know is what are the basic parameters of
the flight,” explains Billones. “In this case
Kevinplannedan‘intheatmosphere’
flightasopposedtoapressurizedflight
meaningthisflightwouldu tilizean
unpressurizedcapsuleandoccurbelow
thetropopause.Knowingthis,wethen
work to determine the initial ceiling limi-
tations and the maximum duration of both
Kevin and the balloon. These parameters
dictatewhatweatherandwindpatterns
we have tostudy, whichcharts we’llbe
working from and what resources we can
callon, sothoseparameters mustbe de-
velopedfirst,” says Billones.
The first priority for any RTW flight
launchingintheUnitedStatesisasuc-
cessful crossingof the Atlantic,itisthe
first and many say the most difficult hurdle.
“With those parameters established it be-
came obviousthat wewould have to get
Kevinintoawindpatternsystemthat
wouldavoidalloftheNorthAtlantic
frontalsystemsandthunderstormsbe-
cause he would not be able toclimb over
them, he would have to go through them.
Soweinitiallyhadtofindaroutethat

wouldsuccessfullygethimacrossthe
Atlantic but minimize his exposure to the
potentialstormyweatherfoundinthe
lower altitudes,” explainedBillones.
In the caseof the flight oftheJ. Renee
therewasyetanother problem; Billones
calls it thewild card, but amore politically
correctnamewouldbetheChinaCard.
Because of the varied nature and number
ofcountriestobeflownover—eachof
which must grant over flight permission—
politicsbecameanotherelementinthe
weather team’s equation.
“FromDayOnetherewasnevera
questionof this team’spolicy, we would
notviolatethewishesofanycountry,”
says Billones. “This was an absolute, in-
controvertiblepolicy. In the case ofChina,
wehadvery,verystrictlimitationsthat
would allow Kevin only to enter andexit
through the southern part of the country.”
TheplayingoftheChina cardthus
placed an even heavier burden on the met
teambecausewiththoselimitationsin
place, Billonesandhisstaff now hadto
literally back time their forecasting from
theanticipatedpointofUliassi’sentry
intoacceptable Chinese airspace,all the
way to launch. They would have to find a
weathersystemthatwouldcarrytheJ.
Reneefirst south (to avoidthe North At-
lantic), then east across the ocean and into
a branch of the subtropical jet stream that
would carry the balloon into North Africa
around Algeria, Libya and Egypt in order
toassureentryintothesouthernpartof
China.

Preflighttothe Atlantic
Preflightplanningforthe metteam
beganalmostninemonthspriortothe
actuallaunchoftheJ. Renee.Surpris-
ingly finding wind patterns that were suit-
able for a successful launch in Rockford,
IL was the teams last priority. Their first
was tofind a pattern that would success-

fullycrosstheAtlantic whilesettingup
the remainder of the flight for success.
“Inthepre-launchphasewe looked
primarilyatNationalWeatherService
hemispheric long-range charts that go out
totendays,” Billonessaysin explaining
the process his team followed. “Then we
backed our findings up with the European
height charts, the standard300, 400, 500
millibar charts, butagainones thatwent
out to about ten days in advance. Then we
lookedatwherethefrontswouldbefor
the next 5-10 days and from all of this we
developed our trajectory forecasts. These
tend to be real good for the first few days
andthenthefartherouttheygothey
become little more thana good guess.”
Using computermodels,themetteam
alsosurveyedwindpatterndatadating
backover 12years, andranhundreds of
simulations. “We didthis tofind outnot
only what the basic launch patterns had to
be to get us successfully across the Atlan-
tic,”saysBillones,“butthesimulation
hadtopickupandsuccessfullygetus
across theMiddle East and through south-
ernChina.Allthewhilethe simulation
also had to show that we had the capabil-
ity of skirting the majority of the potential
thunderstormareasinvolvedinaflight
likethis—oneofftheeastcoastofthe
United States, another one in the Middle
East, one off the China coast and one off
the west coast of the UnitedStates.”
ByNovemberof lastyearthe team
wasinplacetobeginactualforecasting
forthego-no go decision. Theirwait would
be antagonizing.
“Thatwasmajorfrustration,”says
Billones. “Day after day of forecasting8
to10daysinadvance tryingtofindthat
patternanditnotbeingthere,andnot
beingthere, andnotbeingthere. Finally
wefound onethat matched up rather well.”
In fact the forecasted pattern that the
team presented to Uliassiprior tolaunch

Weathering the Storm

The Art of Global Forecasting as Practiced by the J.
Renee Met Team

by Glen Moyer

Balloon Life,May 2000

14

matched their successful computer mod-
els very well, except for one factor. Cross-
ing the Atlantic would be slow going,
taking as long as seven days and sending
theballoonfar southintothe tropics. This
long southern journey would be neces-
sary to bypass a strong system of storms
blocking the entire north and central At-
lantic.

A Change in Meteorology
Uliassiacceptedtheforecastand
made the decision to launch. Once in the
air, Billonesand histeam thenswitched to
a finer scale model, with much more fre-
quentsampling and for the duration ofthe
flight,mostof their forecastinglooked no
further forward than 72 hours. However,
whenthe flightventured,asforecast,south
of Puerto Rico, Billonesand his team had
to do something notattempted before.
They had to change their entire basis for
forecasting the weather.
“WhenKevinheadedsouthtoPuerto
Rico, passing below 23.5 degrees south
latitudeandontowardtheequator,”
Billones recalls, “we actually switched
frommid-latitudemeteorology—using
standard height charts—totropical me-
teorologywhere we based our forecasts
on things called convergence and diver-
genceand wherethe wind patterns are
based on streamlines, not heightchartsor
isobars.ThenwhenKevingot overto
Africa and turned backnorthwe put away
our tropical meteorology and returned to
the more familiar mid-latitude forecast-
ing.”(Kevinreachedthecoastof Africa in
6-1/2days—almostexactlyasforecast by
his met team.)

Thunderstorms
Ashe trackedsouthoverthe Atlantic,
a 3 to 4 hour delay at launch caused by an
unexpected wet floor at the rock quarry
site,served tochange theballoon’s course
byaslittle as twodegrees.However,
those two degrees moved Uliassi much
closer than expected to a boiling convec-
tive area in the Atlantic over an island.
“Perhaps becauseofthe delay,or
maybe it was just changing weather pat-
terns,” explains Billones,“Kevin went
rightover thetropical islandof Hispanola
at thewrong time oftheday whereit
naturally builds towering cumulus—so
that was unfortunate. Herewehad the
entireAtlanticOcean aroundhimand

naturally we go right smack over an is-
land.”
It was the first, but not the last time
Uliassiwould face the potential of storms
on his flight. So what is the met team’s
role in guiding the pilot out ofharm’s
way?
“Unfortunatelyonce you’re inanarea
like that there’s not much we can do,”
Billonessays, “other than to describe the
situation to him, tell him maybe where
most of the activity is, and then possibly
recommend an altitude that might allow
him to skirtaround the storms. Truthfully
the pilot is pretty much on his own.”

Politicsand the Unexpected
Once acrossthe Atlanticthe forecast-
ing gets more difficult. Even projecting
out just two or three days ahead of the
balloon becomes a challengeand alot
work. Why? The political/China card.
“Atthis pointin the flight,”Billones
recalls, “we would progress from day to
day hearing that certain countries had not
given us permission yet. This would re-
quireustoscrambleandsearchfor
steerable wind patterns to carry Uliassi
aroundthesecountries,whiletheten-
dencywas forus to comeupon these
countries where they would give us per-
mission at the last moment, so we would
fly on and go to forecastingpast the next
crisis point. We were constantlyworking
steering options one to three days in ad-
vance of the flight to make sure that he
would miss certain political areas, miss
heavy weather areas,andmiss changing
weather patterns that could loop him in
flight.”
These threatened loops proved to be
the unexpected elements of the flightand
there were twoof them. “The firstof these
situationswouldnothave been lifethreat-
ening,but wouldhavebeenjust plain
embarrassing,” says Billones. “Just be-
fore he was to hit the tip of Africa near
Mauritania, had Uliassistayed hiscourse,
the winds would have loopedhim around
and sent him all the way back to South
America.Itwould not havebeenlife-
threatening, in fact it would have been a
nice, fun, weather freeflightbacktoSouth
America, but talk about embarrassing!”
Topreventthis,Billonesandhisteam
had to scramble and suggest to Uliassi a
series of maneuvers that allowed him to
go very slowly left through Mauritania,

rather than loopin right around high pres-
sure and sailing off for South America.
Forecasting these maneuvers proved
very tricky because of the need to forecast
windsbasedontropicalmeteorology.
Among other parameters this means us-
ing wind patterns caused not by changes
in temperatures and fronts, but by changes
in thevertical structureoftropical air
masses. A unique factor in tropical me-
teorology is that near the equator the Co-
riolis effect (remember ground school?),
theforce thatcauses clockwise rotationin
thenorthernhemisphereandcounter-
clockwise in the southern, zeros outatthe
equator.Thustheteamwas forcedto
abandonstandard pressure charts,with
height lines, isobars and fronts and again
usestreamlinechartstoforecastsuggested
altitudeswhereby Uliassi couldfinda left
turn toward Libya rather than looping to
SouthAmerica.
The second such situation occurred
much later inthe flight near the border of
India andPakistan. Once againwere itnot
for maneuvers suggested by the met team
Uliassi would have found himself looping
around a high pressure system. This time
he would have flown straight into a huge
storm system in the Bay of Bengal with
possibly deadly results.

Unrealized Success?
Sojust how close did the system that
Uliassi launchedinto match those suc-
cessful projections? All else being equal,
could he have made it?
“Without adoubt,”saysBillones,
“weare convinced he would have entered
Chinacorrectly and he would have exited
Chinacorrectly, that is, within the param-
eters they had allowed.
“There was a thunderstorm area and
frontal system that was of great concern
off of China, buthe wasatsuchanincred-
iblealtitudeof 31 to32,000 feet, he would
have been over 99 percent of the convec-
tive activity. Then looking out over the
Pacific, where the systems aremuchmore
conservative, muchmore predictable, the
wind patterns werelining up where he
could have gotten to the United States.
Ofcourse it’sallconjectureandguess-
work, but weather wise the all the tough
stuff was behind us. He just might have
made it!”