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Local weather balloons are launched to help track Tropical Depression Nicole

Weather balloons launched by the Midland branch of the National Weather Service help track the storm.

MIDLAND, Texas — (Editor's note: When this story aired on TV, Nicole was still a category one hurricane. It has since been downgraded.)

Nicole made landfall early Thursday morning on the east coast of Florida.

At landfall, it was a category one hurricane, producing significant damage along the coast, but nothing compared to the damage that Ian did.

Even though Florida is a long ways away from the Permian Basin, the National Weather Service office here still played a part in helping Floridians.

This was done by sending up weather balloons that collect atmospheric data here locally.

This data is then put into sophisticated computer models that predict the weather across the planet. So even though we are thousands of miles from Florida, the data collected here still helped with warning Floridians before the storm hit.

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