EARTH · WEATHER BALLOONS · NEW ZEALAND
Paraparaumu
Paraparaumu is an upper-air station in New Zealand that releases weather balloons as part of the global observing network. Its radiosondes go up at 00:00 & 12:00 UTC— the standard synoptic launch times used worldwide.Below is the nearest balloon aloft right now and a doorway into the live map, both from SondeHub — shown with the time reported, and never a claim that a specific balloon launched from here.
About this station
Paraparaumu sits at 40.90°S, 174.98°E and about 7 m (23 ft) above sea level. As a WMO upper-air station it launches radiosondes on the standard synoptic schedule — the coordinated worldwide release times that build the global atmospheric snapshot every forecast model starts from. Whether a balloon is in the air near here at this exact moment depends on the launch cycle and on a SondeHub receiver being in range, so the live block above is the real picture, not the schedule alone.
What a launch here looks like
At each synoptic time, staff fill a balloon with hydrogen or helium, attach a radiosonde, and let it go. The balloon climbs at roughly five metres a second, expanding as the air thins, while the sonde radios back temperature, humidity, pressure and — from how it drifts — the wind at every level. Near 30 km the balloon stretches until it bursts, and a small parachute lowers the sonde back to the ground, often more than a hundred kilometres downwind. If a SondeHub receiver hears one of Paraparaumu’s sondes, it appears on the live map above.
Nearby launch stations
The closest upper-air stations to Paraparaumu— other places releasing balloons into the same skies.