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Helium supplies, already dicey, got worse this past week when production shut down in Arzew, Algeria. The curtailment joins ongoing disruptions in supplies from Russia and the US Federal Helium Reserve as well as planned maintenance at facilities in Qatar. Helium users in several locations say they are struggling to get the gas they need to keep their scientific instruments running.

“The shortage is scaring most NMR spectroscopists,” says Martha Morton, the director of research instrumentation at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Nuclear magnetic resonance instruments and related tools use liquid helium to cool superconducting magnets.

Morton says her price per liter just rose more than 20%. Smaller universities and private labs may have to shut their instruments down, she says, a process that is expensive and difficult to do without damaging the instrument. Some researchers active in an email-based NMR community are even considering letting their helium run dry, which causes the magnet to abruptly lose conductivity in a destructive process called a quench.

A global helium shortage has been affecting celebrations with balloons and even the National Weather Service.

Helium is a rare substance produced when uranium decays. Already difficult to mine, there are only a few sources in the world that produce the gas. Currently, the United States is one of the world’s largest helium producers, along with Qatar and Algeria. However, due to supply chain disruptions, including production plant closures and the 2017 embargo on Qatar, the global supply of helium has been severely affected.

In addition to the shortage affecting various instruments and machines that require the gas to function safely, various companies have been struck with negative balloon sales. In a quarterly earnings call on Thursday, Dollar Tree executives said that they are “once again” experiencing a helium shortage which could impact its sales.

“Currently, helium demand is greater than supply, so our stores are finding themselves temporarily out of helium from time to time as they wait for new deliveries,” Dollar Tree said in a statement on its website. “We know this can be tricky when getting ready for a party, and we are very sorry for the inconvenience,” it added.

Party City CEO Brad Weston said that major helium supplies have placed allocations on the gas.

The shortage has also been impacting the National Weather Service, which uses the odorless gas to fill weather balloons. Weather balloons are released twice daily across the country and provide various weather forecasting information.

However, because of the shortage, numerous balloon sites have had to cut back on launches.

Other groups that have been affected by the helium shortage include the Nebraska Cornhuskers. On Monday, the football team announced that it has had to suspend its traditional touchdown celebration of red balloons.