National Weather Service office in Chanhassen helping track Hurricane Ian

Even though Minnesota is thousands of miles away from the storm, the National Weather Service office in Chanhassen is helping ahead of Hurricane Ian.

Instead of two daily weather balloons, the office is releasing four a day to help track the hurricane.

Weather service offices all across the country are sending up additional balloons to get more data to help predict where the hurricane will hit.

Hurricane Ian Coverage

“That will send back information about temperature, pressure, wind speed, all that gets ingested into the models that we will use to forecast the hurricane for the National Hurricane Center,” NWS Meteorologist Melissa Dye. “It’s pretty cool that we’re able to help out from so far away.”

The National Weather Service office in Chanhassen will keep sending up extra balloons for Hurricane Ian through Wednesday.