{"id":30650,"date":"2025-06-27T15:54:31","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T15:54:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=30650"},"modified":"2025-06-27T16:27:39","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T16:27:39","slug":"critical-hurricane-monitoring-data-is-going-offline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=30650","title":{"rendered":"Critical Hurricane Monitoring Data Is Going Offline"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

The loss of access to the data could hamstring forecasters\u2019 ability to track hurricanes and warn residents of their risk.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

The National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration has said that in the next few days it will stop providing data<\/a> from satellites that have been helping hurricane forecasters do their jobs for decades, citing \u201crecent service changes\u201d as the cause.<\/p>\n

The satellites are jointly operated by NOAA and the Department of Defense as part of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program<\/a>. They are old, dating to the early 2000s, but they have reliably helped improve hurricane forecasting for decades. The data will be halted by Monday, June 30, the agency said, without giving further explanation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an incredibly big hit for hurricane forecasts, and for the tens of millions of Americans who live in hurricane-prone areas,\u201d said Michael Lowry, a hurricane specialist in South Florida who has worked at the National Hurricane Center and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.<\/p>\n

The satellites orbit the poles and use microwave radiation to peer inside a hurricane to reveal changes in a storm\u2019s structure. This information is critical for accurately predicting the path of storms and detecting hurricane intensification, particularly at night.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n
\n

The satellites are not being decommissioned, but their data will no longer be received, processed or stored. Satellites can\u2019t last forever and are eventually retired, but it is not clear that is the case here, said Andy Hazelton, a hurricane modeling expert at the University of Miami. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to have less data for no reason,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

NOAA did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Forecasters rely on various satellite-based tools to monitor tropical cyclones and hurricanes and predict their behavior. Observations of cloud tops and precipitation bands help forecasters see how a storm is moving and spreading. Come nightfall, microwave observation satellites work like forecasters\u2019 night-vision goggles.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.<\/p>\n

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into<\/a>\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0for all of The Times.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.<\/p>\n

Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The loss of access to the data could hamstring forecasters\u2019 ability to track hurricanes and warn residents of their risk.The National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration has said that in the next few days it will stop providing data from satellites that have been helping hurricane forecasters do their jobs for decades, citing \u201crecent service changes\u201d as the cause.The satellites are jointly operated by NOAA and the Department of Defense as part of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program. They are old, dating to the early 2000s, but they have reliably helped improve hurricane forecasting for decades. The data will be halted by Monday, June 30, the agency said, without giving further explanation.\u201cThis is an incredibly big hit for hurricane forecasts, and for the tens of millions of Americans who live in hurricane-prone areas,\u201d said Michael Lowry, a hurricane specialist in South Florida who has worked at the National Hurricane Center and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.The satellites orbit the poles and use microwave radiation to peer inside a hurricane to reveal changes in a storm\u2019s structure. This information is critical for accurately predicting the path of storms and detecting hurricane intensification, particularly at night.The satellites are not being decommissioned, but their data will no longer be received, processed or stored. Satellites can\u2019t last forever and are eventually retired, but it is not clear that is the case here, said Andy Hazelton, a hurricane modeling expert at the University of Miami. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to have less data for no reason,\u201d he said.NOAA did not respond to a request for comment.Forecasters rely on various satellite-based tools to monitor tropical cyclones and hurricanes and predict their behavior. Observations of cloud tops and precipitation bands help forecasters see how a storm is moving and spreading. Come nightfall, microwave observation satellites work like forecasters\u2019 night-vision goggles.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30652,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30650"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30653,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30650\/revisions\/30653"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}