OLNEY, Ill. - s4story -- WCIA 3 Chief Meteorologist Kevin Lighty will sit down in studio this week with Jeremy David Higgs, founder and president of Aerostratospheric, for an upcoming episode of Behind the Forecast on WCIA 3+.

Higgs is scheduled to film at the WCIA studios on Tuesday, September 16, 2026. The broadcast date has not yet been confirmed. Viewers should follow WCIA 3 and Aerostratospheric for air-date updates.

Behind the Forecast is Lighty's original WCIA 3+ series on contemporary weather topics, guest interviews, and the science behind the forecast. Episodes stream on the WCIA 3+ app for Roku, Apple TV, and Fire Stick.

The interview comes one day after Aerostratospheric's x1Albatross engineering test and one week before the maiden science flight of X2Griffon.

On Saturday, September 12, Aerostratospheric released a 100-gram latex balloon from the Casey, Illinois, operations area carrying a simulated x1Albatross payload. The balloon climbed about 5.5 meters per second, reached an estimated burst altitude of about 59,000 feet in roughly 54 minutes, and landed in rural Vigo County, Indiana, after a flight of about 1 hour 40 minutes. The operational x1Albatross is designed as a longer-duration mid-altitude platform meant to ride the jet stream, not as a short climb-and-burst flight.

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The X2Griffon maiden science flight is scheduled for Saturday, September 19, 2026, from Casey, Illinois. X2Griffon is Aerostratospheric's flagship ~1.01 lb stratospheric profiler. It records temperature, humidity, pressure, and GPS-derived wind on ascent toward about 115,000 feet, with real-time tracking and parachute recovery. Public data is intended for release after recovery.

"Central Illinois is where we build these systems and fly them," Higgs said. "Kevin Lighty's show is a chance to explain, in plain language, why vertical weather data still matters, what the x1Albatross test told us, and what we hope to measure with X2Griffon on the 19th."

Aerostratospheric is an Illinois nonprofit and home of Midwest Stratospheric Data Systems. The organization designs, builds, and flies lightweight high-altitude platforms under FAA Part 101 guidelines and publishes atmospheric observations for public scientific and educational use.

Show information: https://www.wcia.com/wcia-plus-shows/