My shift at #ICECHIP is done! More than twenty hailsondes have been launched into hailstorm updrafts and many more to go over the next three weeks. Thanks to the amazing team of scientists, tech staff and students who made this possible!

They're actually spheres when finished that measure icing conditions, gps location and listen for particle impacts. A balloon is used to carry a probe into the thunderstorm updraft where it is then remotely disconnected, allowing the probe to fly/fall freely.

These little spheres are cut down from balloons inside a thunderstorm updraft where they start following trajectories similar to a natural hailstone. They record their position, icing and listen for impacts!

Today was the first recovery of a hailsonde after its round trip to the stratosphere. A drone first confirmed the location before the crew went to collect. Finding the probes allows for us to reuse them, but also download high freq data on in-storm microphysics. @nsficechip.bsky.social #ICECHIP

This new generation of hailsondes will measure raindrop and hailstone concentration along hail trajectories, provide a unique dataset for informing hail growth conditions.