Trump kills key hurricane forecasting tool

Politico

14 hours ago

Meteorologists are about to lose one of their best forecasting tools — in the middle of hurricane season.
The Trump administration is terminating a military satellite program that has been one of the world's only sources of high-quality data that helps forecasters predict when hurricanes will make sudden, extreme gains in wind speed, writes Chelsea Harvey. The satellites are still fully functional, but the data will go dark by Monday.
Such rapid intensification is notoriously dangerous and difficult to predict. It can transform tropical storms into a major hurricane in mere hours, leaving emergency managers little time to evacuate people and fortify infrastructure.
The administration offered no explanation for — and did not respond to Chelsea's requests for comment about — why it was ending the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, alarming meteorologists.
'There is no sugar-coating it: Hurricane forecasts will undoubtedly be worse after this loss,' Brian McNoldy, a hurricane expert at the University of Miami, told Chelsea. 'For anyone near a hurricane-prone area, this is alarmingly bad news.'
'This decision will kill people'
The military satellite program, which has operated since the 1960s, is made up of a constellation of weather satellites that collect measurements used to track everything from thunderstorms and fog to snow and ice cover. Its defining feature is its microwave sensor, which provides detailed scans key for accurate hurricane models. The program accounts for as much as half of the microwave scans that help forecasters build their predictions.
'Microwave data are already relatively sparse, so any loss — even gradual as satellites or instruments fail — is a big deal; but to abruptly end three active functioning satellites is insanity,' McNoldy said.
The military program is one of the largest single sources of high-quality microwave data in the world. NASA operates a similar satellite, as does Japan.
The program's cancellation is the latest in a string of Trump administration cuts that experts say are blinding the country to the impacts of climate change.
Thousands of federal workers have been fired or accepted buy-outs at agencies that monitor climate change, including NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency. The White House's budget request for fiscal 2026 has proposed severe cuts to climate and weather research programs, including the elimination of NOAA's entire research arm.
'This decision will kill people,' hurricane researcher Jimmy Yunge wrote in a message to NOAA's Office of Satellite and Product Operations.
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