GRAY—  Meteorologist Jim Hayes has been tracking the same storm over the last few days, watching as it wound its way east.

He’s been on shift at the National Weather Service office in Gray since
Tuesday night and now, just after 4:30 a.m. Wednesday, he’s waiting for
the the storm to cross over into Maine.

The phone rings — the first of many calls from Maine school
superintendents he’ll take for the next hour or so. The school won’t
have trouble getting kids to school, he says, but getting them home
will be a different story.

“It won’t be bad to start, but it gets bad later on,” he tells the
Portland schools’ boss. “You should probably see six inches before
noon, and it could switch over to rain tonight.”

He hangs up: “Looks like we just closed Portland schools,” he said.

And that’s how next few hours go at the National Weather Service office in Gray, Maine.

At the same time, they monitor banks of computer screens displaying whirling
radar models, beeping weather forecasts and condition reports from around New
England.

Jim Brown, the office’s Hydro-Meteorological Technician, arrives about 5
a.m. to launch a weather balloon, and they’ll track that, too.

To read this story in its entirety and see videos of the NWS technicians in action click on www.sunjournal.com Thursday.

Jim Brown inflates the morning weather balloon with helium before launching it at 6 a.m. Wednesday from the National Weather Service Station in Gray. The weather station sends up two balloons every day to check on barometric pressure, temperature, wind speeds, and other factors that effect weather.