CMU students sending balloons to space to help with future of forecasting

A project ten years in the making is taking center stage in West Michigan. All month long, college students from across the country are calling Holland their new home, hoping to impact the future of forecasting.

“I, as a kid, did not love science, did not love math, definitely did not see myself in any kind of position like this," said Cassie Isenberger.

The recent graduate from Central Michigan University found her passion late in high school to eventually pursue a degree in meteorology.

“Just the effects that the lakes have on the people is just fascinating to me," she told FOX 17.

Isenberger was excited to join a groundbreaking project, one created by Jason Keeler when he was in her shoes.

“It's exciting for me because it's not just about this project," said Keeler, an Assistant Professor of Meteorology at CMU. "It's the projects that they'll go on to do and how they'll help the next generation of scientists going forward.”

The project is called MITTEN-CI . It stands for M aritime to I nland T ransitions T owards EN vironments for C onvection I nitiation.

Essentially, the goal is to "understand the influence of Lake Michigan on thunderstorm development," Keeler said.

There are 37 total team members, including 28 students from five universities who are using the month of July to collect data from the lakeshore to Lansing. In addition to CMU, there are teams from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Texas Tech University, University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

FOX 17

“They're designed to sample pressure, temperature, humidity and wind as they're driving across the area," Keeler said, referencing two vehicles from CMU's fleet.

Keeler said the vans will put on 5,000 miles by the end of the project.

Happening inside, Isenberger and her team of colleagues prepare the instruments, tying cups with computer boards to the bottom of helium-filled balloons. Once they are released, each of the attachments will communicate with programs in the van trailing behind.

“Really looking at the graphs, just making sure all the data is coming in, confirming that it's all being saved and updated," Isenberger said.

FOX 17

The CMU group told FOX 17 they'll be releasing 600 balloons in total, an effort supported through $2.5 million in grants from the National Science Foundation .

The hope is for the project to validate current forecasts and improve models moving forward.

Keeler said this month of data collection is only a portion of the project. Analyzing all that data is another huge undertaking.

Right now, the grant money will help them get through at least three years, but Keeler said, as is the case with any good research, they'll answer some questions and leave with more.

The learning never stops, and Keeler said, hopefully the grants won't either.

Follow FOX 17: Facebook - X (formerly Twitter) - Instagram - YouTube