Balloon Filling Huts

Might I enquire - as a mere meteorologist - just to what purpose these balloons (filled in this Balloon Filling Hut) were actually put to?
Having played about with Hydrogen for meteorological purposes (in it's various forms of production) for more decades than most of you have been alive I am very interested!!
In the UK (and at many places overseas) the Met Hydrogen Store was a very long way from most regularly inhabited parts of an airfield. We normally used the big (ex-Cardington) hydrogen cylinders (they weighed 299 lbs!! - I know, I've shifted a fair number of 'em). Even if Molesworth were using Helium (or even the Fairground "Lifting Gas") for whatever purpose you would still have the problem of a Compressed Gas being stored on (or close to) a Working Area. Not even the RAF at the height of WW2 were that daft!!
What is going on here? I am most interested in any replies. And if I can give a "Met" slant to what transpires then I will do so.
I am agog (if not several gogs)
Resmoroh

In my experience, the balloons were filled and used by the 'met' men who visually tracked them to assess local wind-speed and direction. With a radar small radar reflector attached they could be tracked to high altitude on radar for the same purpose.

You are right when you say that the filling and release point was usually remote from other buildings but on UK WW2 airfields hydrogen seems to have been stored in or very close to the Watch Office (Tower) perhaps piped up to a higher floor or roof. Cylinders containing hydrogen were not inherently dangerous to store or handle (you know that - you've had to 'hump' them) but leakage into an enclosed space could cause a serious explosion, hence the remote siting in post war years. Switching to helium would eliminate the problem but increase the expense significantly.

Just a brief summary.
By the early 1940’s there was already a network of radiosonde stations in the UK. These were used to provide upper winds every 6 hours, and upper temperatures, pressures, etc, every 12 hours. These were used in the forecasting process. With this network in place there was very little reason for wind-finding ascents (a Pilot Balloon) on UK airfields (except to keep in practice – and the trigonometry was fiendish!!!).
The main use for hydrogen filled balloons on RAF airfields was to determine the height of the lowest cloudbase during daylight. This clearly affected the flying programme. At night the cloudbase could be determined with a cloudbase searchlight. This was the procedure during WW2, and right up to the time when the pulsed beam cloud searchlight was invented which could measure the cloudbase both by day and by night. Hydrogen balloons then became redundant. There were also experiments (after WW2) using various types of lasers (probably, in the early days, more lethal than hydrogen!!!)
RAF Stations overseas were often located in what were delicately called “data sparse areas” where there was no radiosonde network (or a very fragmentary one). Here the Met Observer not only did cloudbase height-finding balloons but 4 times a day they did a wind-finding ascent as well by tracking a balloon visually through a theodolite. 30,000 feet in daylight was often obtained. At night a small paper Chinese lantern was hung on a long thread under the balloon with a tiny “birthday cake” type candle in it. On a good night you follow one of these up to 10,000 feet. Yes, I know – hydrogen, candles & lanterns, matches, confined spaces, etc, etc, etc!!!!!!!!!!!! BANG!! Find me a Met Asst who has not lost his eyebrows on more than one occasion doing night candle & lantern ascents and you will probably have got a liar!!! The someone invented a tiny water-activated battery, and it all became much safer – but much less fun!!!!!!!!
Now what the USAAF did on UK airfields in WW2 I know not. But hydrogen was still in use (for field operations as recently as the mid 1980’s).
HTH
Resmoroh