2025 Atlantic Hurricane Season

[WxWatcher007]

Yeah about half of microwave imagery is gone as of Monday. It’ll have an immediate forecasting impact. 

 

[Boston Bulldog]

5 hours ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Yeah about half of microwave imagery is gone as of Monday. It’ll have an immediate forecasting impact. 

 

Yeah this is a huge and totally unnecessary loss. RI forecasting in real time will take a major hit. While there are a few more microwave options potentially available, losing SSMIS will inevitably degrade hurricane forecasting skill. 

The hits keep coming

 

[andyhb]

F*ck this administration. Too political for the weather board? Too bad.

Absolute nonsense to decommission microwave satellite data at any time, but especially immediately before hurricane season.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Science and education are two things you need an organized body for... you can cut the rest. They seem to be doing the opposite. 

[FPizz]

1 hour ago, andyhb said:

F*ck this administration. Too political for the weather board? Too bad.

Absolute nonsense to decommission microwave satellite data at any time, but especially immediately before hurricane season.

How has it improved predicted track accuracy?  I've seen zero improvement in that department.  That's what matters most out of anything.  Strength of storms they've been pretty accurate with for a few decades now even without microwave imagery.  

[Stormchaserchuck1]

6 minutes ago, FPizz said:

How has it improved predicted track accuracy?  I've seen zero improvement in that department.  That's what matters most out of anything.  Strength of storms they've been pretty accurate with for a few decades now even without microwave imagery.  

More data is always better. 

[andyhb]

25 minutes ago, FPizz said:

How has it improved predicted track accuracy?  I've seen zero improvement in that department.  That's what matters most out of anything.  Strength of storms they've been pretty accurate with for a few decades now even without microwave imagery.  

So monitoring/predicting rapid intensification is worth nothing? Yeah, no. Intensity forecasting is the more difficult aspect of TC forecasting compared to track.

[Boston Bulldog]

2 hours ago, FPizz said:

How has it improved predicted track accuracy?  I've seen zero improvement in that department.  That's what matters most out of anything.  Strength of storms they've been pretty accurate with for a few decades now even without microwave imagery.  

Track accuracy and cone narrowing from the NHC is probably the most noticeable improvement that has taken place in the past 20 years, take a look at what the cone looked like for Katrina when it entered the Gulf. Every bit of resolution for data matters immensely.

Microwave data for track accuracy with numerical modeling has also taken gigantic strides. Losing a reliable ability to place the exact center with high resolution (in the absence of in-situ radar and hurricane hunter data) will certainly have repercussions down the temporal dimension of outputs.

Intensity still remains the lowest skill forecast variable, which is no surprise given its stochastic nature. It will get so much worse without as frequent “under the hood” looks at the structure, especially as the observed increase in RI events globally continues.

 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

[TradeWinds]

15 hours ago, andyhb said:

F*ck this administration. Too political for the weather board? Too bad.

Absolute nonsense to decommission microwave satellite data at any time, but especially immediately before hurricane season.

The new, state of the art WSF-M just achieved IOC in April. While the Space Force paid for it, NOAA is in talks with them. There are also other microwave imagery data still available to civilian agencies. Also, for the record, the decision to spilt the civilian and defense weather satellite programs was made in 2012 under the Obama Administration.

[Boston Bulldog]

5 hours ago, TradeWinds said:

The new, state of the art WSF-M just achieved IOC in April. While the Space Force paid for it, NOAA is in talks with them. There are also other microwave imagery data still available to civilian agencies. Also, for the record, the decision to spilt the civilian and defense weather satellite programs was made in 2012 under the Obama Administration.

Unfortunately conjecture on potential future products and whataboutism does not fix the immediate gap in coverage we have right now going into the heart of Hurricane season. This short sighted decision will degrade forecasting and public safety immediately.

[andyhb]

5 hours ago, TradeWinds said:

The new, state of the art WSF-M just achieved IOC in April. While the Space Force paid for it, NOAA is in talks with them. There are also other microwave imagery data still available to civilian agencies. Also, for the record, the decision to spilt the civilian and defense weather satellite programs was made in 2012 under the Obama Administration.

Why are we trying to spin this as a good thing? Seriously.

There is no good reason to end SSMIS regardless of what program it is a part of. The other microwave imagery is a significantly degraded compared to SSMIS.

[WxWatcher007]

Yeah, pull the politics out of it—this sounds like a classic case of bureaucrats making decisions that don’t work in the real world. 

How many times have we sat here thinking tropical storm/hurricane X is “about to take off” or “is weakening due to an ERC” or “we need a center fix for the 00z models” only to have MW or recon data blow away our preconceived notions?

I mean my goodness. Who wants to try to forecast if a cane off the east coast of Florida is about to undergo RI based on that quality of data below when recon is six hours away?

 

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

1 hour ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Yeah, pull the politics out of it—this sounds like a classic case of bureaucrats making decisions that don’t work in the real world. 

How many times have we sat here thinking tropical storm/hurricane X is “about to take off” or “is weakening due to an ERC” or “we need a center fix for the 00z models” only to have MW or recon data blow away our preconceived notions?

I mean my goodness. Who wants to try to forecast if a cane off the east coast of Florida is about to undergo RI based on that quality of data below when recon is six hours away?

 

Exactly. This has major real world implications. Especially in the age of marine heatwaves and unprecedented RI. The way people react to a cat 2 and a cat 5 might mean not evacuating and potentially deaths.