I believe they only gave it weather conditions as they came in to run forecasts so it should be legit
A huge blow was dealt to hurricane forecasters this week as a critical tool was abruptly terminated by the Department of Defense and NOAA. The immediate discontinuation of data from three weather satellites will severely impact hurricane forecasts this season and beyond. More ⬇️— Michael Lowry (@michaelrlowry.bsky.social) 2025-06-26T13:17:02.549Z
This is such a bad scenario and because no one with a science background is running NOAA, it won't get fixed. Just wait for a cat 4 to pop up in the Gulf this fall, it's going to be bad.
Pentagon will no longer share satellite data that tracks hurricanes overnight Hurricane forecasters will soon lose access to government satellite data vital to tracking hurricanes overnight — and to preventing what meteorologists once called a “sunrise surprise,” when a storm unexpectedly strengthens or shifts in the darkness. The Pentagon said Monday that it would wait until the end of July before it stops sharing the data — a month later than initially planned — in response to the high level of concern after the move was first announced last week. When the sun sets on a tropical cyclone, meteorologists typically continue to track its strength and development by observing microwave frequencies using Defense Department satellites. But the Pentagon said it will stop making that data publicly available “no later than” July 31, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration office said Monday. Spoiler The notice said defense officials had received concerns from Karen St. Germain, director of the earth science division at NASA. Scientists were initially given less than a week to prepare for the loss of the microwave data. But some meteorologists worry that July is still too soon — and experts have raised concerns that the loss of data could set forecasting capabilities back decades. Many scientists have said the microwave data is more valuable than ever at a time when more hurricanes are undergoing rapid intensification, in which they transform from tropical storms or low-end hurricanes into major Category 4 or 5 storms within a matter of hours — often just before making landfall. As peak hurricane season looms, the Department of Defense has Deep cuts to hurricane data could leave forecasters in the dark “It’s a very useful dataset for getting a lot of detail, and it works at night,” said Robert Rohde, chief scientist at Berkeley Earth. Loss of the microwave data “is likely to create situations where we are unprepared for rapid intensifications,” he said. It is the latest Trump administration action to stir concern among meteorologists that the nation is less prepared to forecast and track extreme weather than it was six months ago. NOAA and the National Weather Service have lost hundreds of meteorologists and other earth scientists in recent months as the U.S. DOGE Service has fired probationary workers and orchestrated early retirements. So many have departed that the Weather Service has had to scramble to reassign staff. The agency was also recently granted a long-awaited hiring-freeze exemption to help fill notable gaps in weather-forecasting offices. The administration last week eliminated the Climate.gov website and social media accounts where it would post news, research and explainers about how human-caused climate change — triggered by fossil fuel emissions and the greenhouse effect — is transforming the planet and altering its weather patterns. The administration said it would release any future research projects that would have appeared on that website to NOAA.gov/climate. The microwave data from the Defense Department satellites and other Earth-observing satellites has helped researchers understand how the warming of the planet is allowing more tropical storms to rapidly intensify. Microwave is a form of radiation with a wavelength that is longer than visible light or infrared waves, though not as long as radio waves. In a microwave oven, the waves make water molecules vibrate, heating food. But by observing microwave radiation that emanates from Earth’s surface — and the ways it interacts with water — scientists can detect where and how intensely water is distributed. It lets them see where clouds are and what the structure of a storm — such as its eye wall and wind patterns — looks like. Meteorologists have been using microwave observations to monitor tropical cyclone development since the late 1990s. NOAA spokeswoman Kim Doster said the microwave data “is a single dataset in a robust suite of hurricane forecasting and modeling tools” that includes satellite data in infrared and visible light and observations from ground-based weather stations, buoys, and devices known as radiosondes that scan atmospheric conditions from weather balloons. There is also an instrument aboard NOAA’s own Joint Polar Satellite System that gathers microwave data — the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder. “NOAA’s data sources are fully capable of providing a complete suite of cutting-edge data and models that ensure the gold-standard weather forecasting the American people deserve,” Doster said in a statement. NOAA officials referred The Washington Post to the Defense Department for questions about the satellite data, gathered as part of the military’s Defense Meteorological Satellite Program. Pentagon officials could not be reached for comment, nor could St. Germain at NASA. But meteorologists said the loss of the data gathered by three defense satellites, carrying instruments called the Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder, means that microwave observations will be gathered far less frequently. It takes many hours for such satellites and others, such as the Global Precipitation Measurement satellite mission jointly operated by the United States and Japan, to scan the planet from what is known as low Earth orbit. Fewer satellites providing microwave observations means significantly more time between scans of a specific storm, said Kim Wood, an associate professor of hydrology and atmospheric sciences at the University of Arizona. It means meteorologists will be able to observe any given tropical storm or hurricane at microwave frequencies about half as often as they do now, Wood said. Besides its importance in tracking hurricanes, the microwave data is also key in studying changes in global ice cover and polar sea ice, Wood added. In a Substack post, James Franklin, retired chief of the National Hurricane Center’s Hurricane Specialist Unit, said there is “no practical substitute” for hurricane forecasters to use. He predicted loss of the data would have cascading impacts on track forecasts for tropical storms, including delayed updates on tropical cyclone strengthening and “cases of hurried and abrupt changes to NHC track and intensity forecasts shortly after first-light visible imagery arrives (the ‘sunrise surprise’).” That will especially heighten risks for people in the Caribbean, Central America and Mexico, where reconnaissance aircraft are deployed less frequently to gather direct storm observations, Franklin wrote. “Traditional weather satellites are helpful, but they don’t allow forecasters to peer beneath the clouds to understand important structural changes that can tip them off to episodes of rapid intensification,” Michael Lowry, another National Hurricane Center veteran and a hurricane specialist with Local 10 News in Miami, wrote in a separate Substack post. The decision to delay the termination of the defense satellite data did not comfort Wood, who doesn’t expect meteorologists to find a solution quickly. For example, Wood said, when the Global Precipitation Monitoring mission launched, about a year passed before scientists stopped using data collected by a precursor satellite. That extra time allowed scientists to make sure they were prepared to process data from the new instruments. “When the National Hurricane Center gets essentially five days’ notice that this key source of information is going away, without a lot of context, it results in a scramble,” Wood said.
Chantal was starting to get it's act together before landfall, another 24 hours and we might have had a hurricane
Just drizzling here . Sounds like more rain than wind expected, only 2000 power outages across the whole state. Core is going through Fayetteville now. Glad it fizzled out because we lose power here with any moderately sized storm.
Looks like a season that probably has development in the far Atlantic (maybe fish storms), rough conditions for development in the Caribbean and then lots of homegrown short lived storms in the Gulf.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/citizens-insurance-diversion-cases-arbitrator-201500769.html Should have posted something months ago. But if you have citizens in Florida, get new insurance asap. Every denied claim is being sent to DOAH and they have won all but one case.
do you see the numbers on the plot line? 24 1 day 48 2 days 72 3 days 96 4 days 120 5 days So within the next day
Another hurricane season and I am again asking you all to please not link to that dipshit Mike’s weather page. He’s not a meteorologist, or even a scientist at all. He’s a POS that doesn’t deserve your clicks. Plenty of other stuff you can follow from actual people that know what the fuck they’re talking about
Modeling on this one is probably having a really hard time because the "center" hasn't crossed Florida and until you get a defined point in the Gulf, it's all speculation with a storm that doesn't exist yet.
I only follow Paul Dellegatto here in Tampa for his forecasts and dunking on weather conspiracy theorists.
no idea of it’s still accurate, but not too long ago every fox13 meteorologist was AMS certified. I think only them and the main guy at bay news 9 had that certification in the area. Not even that loser denis Phillips
This. We aren;t going to know anything until/if this thing gets into the gulf. Decent enough chance this breaks up over florida and is a complete nothingburger.
he’s a fear mongering, drunk, climate change denier who sells subscriptions for his “forecast” to Facebook boomers and routinely gets in the way because he’s a wannabe storm chaser as well. He’s not a meteorologist yet somehow has become the go to guy for weather giving his doomsday forecasts using tools he has no training on how to read. Check out the comments on his instagram posts and you’ll see who he caters to. he’s also called his daughter a “retard” in posts of her. To sum it up, in 2021 Ron desantis gave him the “tropical meteorologist of the year” or whatever it’s called award to him. The same award that had gone to actual scientists and meteorologists at the NWS and NHC before him.
Calculator and bullshit goes a long ways. But honestly I just didn't know what the numbers represented. The hurricane ones I usually see show the day the storm will be in a spot, not the hours.
Definitely positive trends today. The "center" of this system (for lack of a better term, it isn't a closed low...it's an open tropical wave) has remained over the Florida Panhandle instead of dipping into the northeastern Gulf. It should eventually emerge over the water, but it's going to have much less time to organize into anything meaningful before returning to shore. Will still be a heavy rain, potential flash flood risk for portions of Louisiana tomorrow into Friday, though. Around a week from now, we could have close to a repeat scenario of this week with another potential system that we'll have to keep an eye on. Very similar potential track and evolution (across Florida, into the northeastern Gulf, and drifting towards the Central Gulf Coast), and like this system, heavy rain seems like the primary threat.
I wouldn't be overly concerned about it at this stage...the most likely scenario right now for the Florida Panhandle is essentially what they are seeing with this system. There isn't a model that is really developing anything tropical right now, it's just increased rains. But models don't always have the best handle on disorganized, close-in development type of systems like this one would be if it tries to form (Example A: this current system that models tried to bring across the Florida Peninsula but instead went across the Panhandle).