UNSPSC 41114431: Meteorological balloon

A weather balloon, also known as sounding balloon, is a balloon that carries instruments aloft to send back information on atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity and wind speed by means of a small, expendable measuring device called a radiosonde.

UNSPSC 41114431 Meteorological balloon is a Commodity code, but the recent state and local opportunities associated with it reflect a significant mismatch: no meteorological balloons appear in the posted solicitations. Instead, the code tags three unrelated projects — an irrigation system retrofit, a weather forecasting software dashboard, and a flood forecasting system — none of which involve meteorological balloons as products or services. The weather forecasting and flood-forecasting opportunities do involve meteorological data collection and analysis, but neither solicitation mentions balloon-based atmospheric measurement or procurement. The code shows little relevant recent activity under its nominal scope.

The issuing bodies posting under this code are a city (City of DeBary, City of Austin) and a county (Hillsborough County). The geographic spread covers Florida and Texas. The City of Austin's Weather Services and Decision Dashboard RFP (due November 5, 2026) seeks utility-grade weather forecasting and decision-support software with 24/7 meteorologist access, real-time data delivery, and outage prediction tailored to Austin Energy's service territory; the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners' Countywide Flood Forecasting System RFP (due September 11, 2026, estimated at $850,000 over four years) requests an automated compound flood forecasting and impact-mapping system integrating rainfall, tidal, and storm surge data. Neither opportunity procures meteorological instrumentation or atmospheric measurement equipment, and the code's application here appears to reflect tagging error rather than genuine commodity alignment.