This is the article that prompted the response above: Mind boggling that the zealots are willing to sabotage their own safety in their crusade against climate science.
A month into the start of an Atlantic hurricane season that forecasters expect to be unusually busy, the federal government has announced plans to end the use of satellite data that hurricane experts say is crucial to tracking storms and spotting the early warning signs of rapid intensification.
A service change notice issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Wednesday states that all data collected through the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program will be suspended by June 30.
DMSP satellites, which are operated by NOAA and the U.S. Air Force, provide environmental and weather information used both in the planning of U.S. military operations and NOAA's weather forecasts, according to NOAA.
"This service change and termination will be permanent," the notice reads, though it does not offer a reason for the program's suspension.
NOAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Defense Department referred questions to the Air Force, which had not immediately responded.
The move came as a shock to much of the meteorological community, including Miami-based meteorologist and hurricane specialist Michael Lowry.
"My first reaction was, 'I must be reading something wrong,'" he said.
Lowry said the program's suspension means hurricane researchers across the country, including National Hurricane Center forecasters, will no longer receive real-time data from three microwave satellites. Those satellites, unlike traditional satellite technology, allow scientists to see through clouds and inside tropical storms and hurricanes, even in the dark.
Though it appears the satellites will continue to orbit Earth, Lowry said the federal government will no longer ingest, process or transmit the data they collect. And while there are other satellites with similar capabilities operated by foreign countries and other programs, Lowry said DMSP satellites represent about 50% of the microwave data available to forecasters in the U.S.
"This is a big deal," Lowry said. "For hurricane forecasting, this is the biggest hit that I've seen to our capabilities in a very long time."
Immediate impacts The program's suspension comes just two days after Tropical Storm Andrea, the first named storm of 2025, formed over the central Atlantic about 1,205 miles west of the Azores. Andrea dissipated later the same day, but it's the first storm in a season that NOAA forecasters and Colorado State University researchers have warned will likely see above-average tropical activity, fueled in part by warm ocean temperatures and reduced wind shear.
NOAA is predicting 13 to 19 named storms this year. Of those, six to 10 are expected to become hurricanes, and three to five major hurricanes of Category 3 strength or more.
An average season ends with 14 named storms, seven hurricanes with three major hurricanes.
While NOAA has faced a deluge of staffing and funding cuts at the hands of the Trump administration, Lowry saideven very tangible impacts like reduced weather balloon launches "pale in comparison" to the loss of this data.
As the season carries on and tropical activity picks up, Lowry said the U.S. is going to see immediate impacts to hurricane modeling and forecasting, both of which are informed by microwave satellites.
"So this couldn't have really come at a worse time because there's little room for correction on this," he said, adding that the announcement came with little to no warning or explanation. "We're not going to have the data we need for peak hurricane season."
Seeing 'under the hood' While traditional satellites essentially take photos of the Earth's surface, New Orleans meteorologist Scot Pilié said microwave satellites offer scientists a look "under the hood of a storm," allowing them to analyze the structure, intensity and changes happening within a storm's core.
This, he said, is especially important at night, when many other kinds of satellites struggle to collect data, and in between Hurricane Hunter missions. Hurricane Hunter flights are often hailed as one of most useful tools available to forecasters, but Pilié said they can't fly into every storm. They rarely fly out to the Pacific Ocean and never go out to the storms brewing hundreds of miles away near Africa's coast.
Plus, they can't be in the air all the time.
Hurricane Hunter flights are often scheduled for every 6-8 hours, Pilié said, and a lot can change inside a hurricane's core in that amount of time.
That's where microwave data comes in handy.
"So this is a really critical tool for spotting rapid intensification," he said.
When Hurricane Otis was headed for Mexico's Pacific coast in 2023, Pilié said one of the only reasons forecasters knew it was undergoing rapid intensification was because of microwave data. That storm, he said, went on to strengthen from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane in less than 48 hours.
Pilié said the latest cut is "a huge loss."
"This is kind of one of the deepest cuts that I've seen when it comes to real-time weather analysis," he said.
