Shortage of hot air brings down balloons that detect … hot air

A HELIUM shortage is threatening the US weather service because it is preventing balloons being sent into the atmosphere.

A by-product of decaying uranium, the price of helium has doubled over the past two years as stockpiles have dwindled due to plant closures and a 2017 embargo imposed on Qatar, one of the world’s largest suppliers along with the US and Algeria.

The National Weather Service, which uses balloons for forecasting purposes, has had to cut back on the frequency of launches at some of its sites.

In normal circumstances, it launches balloons twice a day from around 100 locations, with five using helium.

The scarcity of helium has coincided with the service having contractual issues with the supplier of hydrogen, which is used as an alternative

While the National Weather Service has played down the level of disruption, some meteorologists fear that forecasting could be hampered by the lack of data from the upper atmosphere.

Helium is also used in sensitive imaging equipment such as spectrometers and microscopes, leading some to be mothballed until supply improves.

Earlier this week, the Nebraska Cornhuskers football team announced that the shortage meant that the team would be unable to release balloons to mark the first touchdown of the season.

The shortage was highlighted by Dollar Tree, a US chain of discount stores with more than 15,000 branches.

It has apologised to customers for the shortage of helium to fill party balloons.

“Helium demand is greater than supply, so our stores are finding themselves temporarily out of helium from time to time as they wait for new deliveries,” it said.

Helium was regarded as so critical to national security that the US government created a national stockpile in the Sixties. But the US started selling off the stockpile in the mid-nineties.

A slump in demand during the pandemic meant supplies were plentiful. But the end of lockdown saw demand rise as two major plants – one in Texas and the other in Russia – were forced to shut down because of a leak and fire respectively.

Two plants in Algeria have also shut down and experts have warned the conflict in Ukraine will exacerbate shortages further.