{"id":240179,"date":"2016-03-23T13:44:08","date_gmt":"2016-03-23T17:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.afspc.af.mil\/news\/story.asp?id=123471220"},"modified":"2016-03-23T13:44:08","modified_gmt":"2016-03-23T17:44:08","slug":"go-for-launch-airmen-forecast-weather-for-space-missions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=240179","title":{"rendered":"Go for launch: Airmen forecast weather for space missions"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"float:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.afspc.af.mil\/news\/story.asp?id=123471220\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" style=\"margin-right:15px\" src=\"http:\/\/www.afspc.af.mil\/shared\/media\/photodb\/thumbnails\/2016\/03\/160224-F-VY538-010.JPG\"<\/img><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Predicting weather for space missions is tough enough. But when forecasts cover part of Florida&#8217;s lightning alley, where a rocket blasting off could spur strikes, the demands of the job can skyrocket.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Launches can trigger lightning strikes even when you don&#8217;t have lightning in the area,&#8221; said Kathy Winters, a launch weather officer with the 45th Weather Squadron, who tracks the climate around Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.<\/p>\n<p>An electrical field, Winters explains, may already be present in the clouds. So when a rocket blasts off, it can induce a lightning strike with its trail of exhaust &#8212; a conductive path to the ground.<br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.afspc.af.mil\/news\/story.asp?id=123471220\">more&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.afspc.af.mil\/news\/story.asp?id=123471220\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/www.afspc.af.mil\/shared\/media\/photodb\/thumbnails\/2016\/03\/160224-F-VY538-010.JPG\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Predicting weather for space missions is tough enough. But when forecasts cover part of Florida&#8217;s lightning alley, where a rocket blasting off could spur strikes, the demands of the job can skyrocket.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Launches can trigger lightning strikes even when you don&#8217;t have lightning in the area,&#8221; said Kathy Winters, a launch weather officer with the 45th Weather Squadron, who tracks the climate around Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.<\/p>\n<p>An electrical field, Winters explains, may already be present in the clouds. So when a rocket blasts off, it can induce a lightning strike with its trail of exhaust &#8212; a conductive path to the ground.<br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.afspc.af.mil\/news\/story.asp?id=123471220\">more&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":615444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-240179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air-force-space-command"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=240179"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240180,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240179\/revisions\/240180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/615444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=240179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=240179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=240179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}