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Scientists in Missouri to launch giant weather balloons during the total solar eclipse

Saint Louis University Robert Pasken and his graduate student Melissa Mainhart perform a test run of a weather balloon that they plan to launch during the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse.
David Kovaluk | St. Louis Public Radio
Saint Louis University meteorologist Robert Pasken and his graduate student Melissa Mainhart perform a test run of a weather balloon that they plan to launch during the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse.

It's not just astronomy nerds who are preparing for the total solar eclipse in August. Scientists are also using the event, which has not occurred in Missouri since 1442, as an opportunity to gather data. 

St. Louis is one of 30 locations across the U.S. where scientists will launch large balloons into the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere during the eclipse, as a part of the NASA and NSF-sponsored Eclipse Ballooning Project. On Tuesday afternoon, Saint Louis University and Jefferson College researchers performed a test-run of their balloon, which will carry a radiosonde, an instrument that measures wind speed, humidity, barometric pressure and other conditions of the atmosphere. They will also be using Ameren Missouri's network of weather monitoring stations, called Quantum Weather

The path by which the total solar eclipse is supposed to travel on August 21, 2017.
Credit NASA
The "path of totality," or the path by which the total solar eclipse is supposed to travel on August 21, 2017.

"The idea here is that there's a really large response on the part of the atmosphere whenever we lose sunlight," said Robert Pasken, a SLU meteorology professor who is leading the effort in St. Louis. "All of us are going to try and make a coordinated effort to collect data as the eclipse happens and as it disappears."  

Parts of Missouri will lose sunlight for about two-and-a -half minutes during the eclipse. Temperatures could suddenly drop by an average of 10 degrees, according to the American Astronomical Society. 

Most of the United States will experience a partial lunar eclipse, but Columbia and a portion of the St. Louis metro area lie directly on the path of totality, or the path by which the moon completely covers the sun. 

Eli is the science and environment reporter at St. Louis Public Radio.