Balloon on its way to past Long Prairie - via stratosphere

Morris is cold and dreary under a low cloud ceiling today, which did not stop my colleague Gordon McIntosh and his students in Experimental Physics from launching their stratospheric balloon this morning. There were many frozen fingers, noses and toes out here at the Morris water tower, but everything went smoothly. The students prepared a series of measurements, including various photometric experiments,  radiation, composition, temperature, pressure, etc, which will profile the atmosphere up to a height of 40 miles. There, the balloon is expected to pop and drop its load with a little parachute. The balloon took off in a southeasterly direction, but as it gains height and passes through the jet stream region, it will move more to a north-easterly path.
The sensors are packaged in a series of small cubic styrofoam containers to protect them from cold and impact, the position is tracked by GPS, in addition to a noise beeper to ease the search at the end. Now, the chase is on - hopefully everything will be recovered. I will keep you posted on the results.