{"id":333588,"date":"2026-06-12T12:59:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T12:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/333588\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T12:59:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T12:59:10","slug":"morning-weather-watch-continues-for-great-texas-balloon-race-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/333588\/","title":{"rendered":"Morning weather watch continues for Great Texas Balloon Race launch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">LONGVIEW, Texas (KLTV) &#8211; Balloon pilots and chase crews gathered at 7 a.m. for a familiar Great Texas Balloon Race ritual: waiting on the weather. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Crews tracked shifting winds across Gregg County and scouted potential launch sites as conditions changed through the morning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe\u2019re chasing it. It\u2019s part of the adventure,\u201d pilot Blake Aldridge said, holding a small \u201cpibal\u201d balloon used to test wind direction and speed. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Aldridge and other pilots, including Bill Bussey and Alan Anderson, prepared to inflate and release the pibal while monitoring readings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Organizers had not yet given pilots the green light to fly. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Early observations showed strong winds aloft \u2014 around 34 mph at roughly 700 feet \u2014 and clouds lowered the ceiling, limiting safe flight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">As the sun came up, winds began shifting direction, complicated by fronts colliding over East Texas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Crews moved to multiple locations during the morning, trying to position themselves for a launch window and a chance at targets downwind, including a first target near the Maude Cobb Convention Center.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">For now, the theme remained the same: hurry up and wait, with hopes that breaking clouds and calming winds will finally allow balloons to lift off.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 KLTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONGVIEW, Texas (KLTV) &#8211; Balloon pilots and chase crews gathered at 7 a.m. for a familiar Great Texas&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[119230,34388,119231,119232,7802,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-333588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-great-texas-balloon-race","tag-gregg-county","tag-gtbr","tag-hot-air-balloon","tag-longview","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}