China News Service, Xining, November 10th. Title: 70 years of China’s highest air sounding meteorological station: conveying plateau wind and clouds to the world
Author Sun responseObject comprehensive report
"The thing we fear most in our dreams is that the balloon cannot be released." On the 9th, at the Tuotuohe Meteorological Station in Golmud City, Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, which is located at the source of the Yangtze River, Miao Peilin, the station director who has worked for 14 years, said this when he talked about this plateau job.
The Tuotuo River is the main source of the Yangtze River, with an altitude of 4,533 meters. The oxygen is less than half of the plains, and it is called the "life forbidden zone".
The picture shows the Tuotuohe weather station in 2003. Photo courtesy of Qinghai Provincial Meteorological Bureau
In 1956, the first generation of Chinese meteorologists established an observation site on the Tuotuo River. It has been 70 years since then. As the highest-altitude sounding meteorological station in China, it has now become the core reporting station and global data exchange station of China’s national meteorological station network. Observation missions in multiple fields including ground, high-altitude, acid rain, and ecology are carried out simultaneously here, providing basic support for studying the Tibetan Plateau and even global climate change.
The balloon Miao Peilin mentioned was a sounding balloon. Releasing sounding balloons every day is an unbeatable observation mission of the station.
Miao Peilin recalled, "Once the balloon was caught by the strong wind and hit the high-voltage wire just after it was released. We had to use long wooden poles to solve the problem. Now that I think about it, we really risked our lives."
Nowadays, with the modernization and upgrading of Beidou communications and sounding services, such desperate situations no longer occur, but the test of plateau duty still exists.
The picture shows the current observation field of Tuotuohe Meteorological Station. Photo by Zhao Haimei
Miao Peilin, who was born in 1989, took the initiative to apply to this difficult station after graduating from university. He developed refractory hypertension due to long-term hypoxia. A blood vessel suddenly burst while he was on duty. After he escaped from danger, his left arm remained numb and sore.
Deputy station director Wang Hong is the oldest observer at the station. The meteorological equipment in his early years left a deep impression on him.
"There was no automatic recording at that time. The data that popped up on the screen had to be copied one by one by hand, checked and repeated. A machine, a pen and an observation book were our workbench." Wang Hongcai recalled.
Now the station uses a bridge plus cellular network, which significantly reduces line failures during wind and snow seasons, and data can be wirelessly transmitted to business platforms hundreds of kilometers away.
"With fewer wires, we can't leave all the work to machines. At nights of more than 30 degrees Celsius, we still have to use flashlights to go out for inspections." Wang Hongcai said that the station implements an operation and maintenance mechanism of "daily inspections, weekly inspections, and monthly maintenance." "No matter how smart the equipment is, it cannot replace the light of that flashlight."
In July 2025, the area where the weather station is located encountered extreme short-term heavy rainfall, and the daily precipitation and maximum hourly rainfall intensity set new July extreme values for the new station. The entire station is on duty 24 hours a day to monitor and push rain conditions to local areas as soon as possible to support flood prevention and people's relocation, achieving zero casualties and zero property losses.
"In the next five to 10 years, more advanced smart devices may appear." Miao Peilin said frankly that technology will continue to be updated, but the light of the flashlight in the wilderness late at night will continue to stay at the source of the Yangtze River. (over)
