U.S. Department of Defense announced Tuesday it would no longer process and deliver data essential to most hurricane forecasts

On Monday, the U.S. Department of Defense announced it would immediately stop ingesting, processing, and transmitting data essential to most hurricane forecasts.

The announcement was formalized on Tuesday when NOAA distributed a service change notice to all users, including the National Hurricane Center, that by next Monday, June 30th, they would no longer receive real-time microwave data collected aboard three weather satellites jointly run by NOAA and the U.S. Department of Defense.

The permanent discontinuation of data from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager Sounder (SSMIS) will severely impede and degrade hurricane forecasts for this season and beyond, affecting tens of millions of Americans who live along its hurricane-prone shorelines.

The news on Tuesday sent users across the weather and climate community – including those monitoring changes to sea ice extent in the polar regions – scrambling to understand the rationale behind the abrupt termination. Though not immediately clear why the real-time data was suddenly discontinued, the decision appears to have stemmed from Department of Defense security concerns.

Officials at the National Hurricane Center were also caught off guard by the announcement and are preparing their team for the loss of critical forecast data for the rest of the hurricane season.

  • BastingChemina@slrpnk.net
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    2 hours ago

    About project 2025:

    The plan, spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, says that the weather service should “fully commercialize its forecasting operations” and focus on providing data to private companies.

    It also calls for a “review” of the work of the National Hurricane Center. It acknowledges that the center provides important public safety information, but also says its data should be presented “neutrally” rather than in a way that makes points about climate change.

  • lostoncalantha@lemmy.world
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    1 hour ago

    Officials were caught off guard? What do you mean? Was anybody watching the last election and reading project 2025? None of this is a shock.

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    5 hours ago

    Holy shit, they actually fucked over NOAA.

    Fucking why.

    They literally do nothing but benefit the world.

    I am so tired of this shit, either let me fuck off and live in the woods so I never have to interact with this again or just end everything now, the world they are building isn’t worth living in.

    Fuck.

    • Raltoid@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      Fucking why.

      Because it will cause major issues, people will demand a replacement, and a private company owned by someone who bribed Trump will swoop in and “save” everyone with a subpar solution that is worse and cost more.

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      5 hours ago

      They get off on hurting people. They want to hurt everyone but themselves, and sucking up to them only delays the harm they will cause to you. They don’t care how they’re remembered, as long as people keep saying their names.

      • Zink@programming.dev
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        5 hours ago

        They don’t care how they’re remembered, as long as people keep saying their names.

        This is the only thing that could explain Musk’s actions of the last several months as a believable rational choice. He realized he is not going to be around to see immortality or brain downloads or whatever, so he has to make his name and image immortal instead.

        Of course, there are numerous other reasons that could explain it, many of them personality flaws.

  • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
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    10 hours ago

    It’s silly to invest in all this expensive technology when you can just look out a window and draw these things with a sharpie.

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    12 hours ago

    what the actual chicken fried fuck?

    did they do this because they don’t want data about climate change to exist? don’t these fuckwads know how much shipping companies rely on that information? not to mention the actual fucking navy

    • FilthyHookerSpit@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      It creates a need that a private company can then fill. It’s greed and grift all the way down with these fucks.

      Edit: (Bonus fuckery when they sell the existing instruments to said company for a “pay to play” access to information that was historically always free)

      • solsangraal@lemmy.zip
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        10 hours ago

        i can’t fucking believe we have to deal with this toddler stomping his feet about his stupid wrong weather statement being contradicted that one time by an agency whose entire purpose for existence is studying and forecasting the weather

    • Wytch@lemmy.zip
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      12 hours ago

      War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength.

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    9 hours ago

    Why don’t people realize Dear Leader (and his Sharpie) is all that’s required for ultimately accurate and divinely inspired hurricane forecasting??

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    12 hours ago

    You have to wonder why the administration’s trying to make Americans less safe. You don’t have to wonder that I know why, but you should ask him. Constantly. Loudly.

    • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      With this and FEMA being drawn down I’m guessing Trump wants to create cheap real estate for his rich friends to buy up. If you can’t rebuild you’ll move and take what you can get for the rubble you used to call home.

    • Zenith@lemm.ee
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      11 hours ago

      Killing adult Americans is part of the plan to get the population to trend younger again. However you can take out adult Americans and increase infant Americans will be taken advantage of

  • frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    12 hours ago

    All by themselves, weather forecasting satellites justify every dollar put into space programs. The lives saved are incalculable. We are squandering that benefit for no reason whatsoever.

  • multifariace@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    This was originally in the DOGE plan. What took so long to process? I’ve been watching for news on this catastrophic decision.

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    12 hours ago

    Waiting, sadly, for GPS to go back to being obfuscated again. It’s bound to happen. Want GPS? You gotta pay.

    Seems off topic, I know, but they did this (hurricane) by turning off satellite feeds

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      10 hours ago

      Luckily, the EU also has Galileo, and Russia has GLONASS (skeptical about the latter, but it exists).

      Nearly every GPS-capable device has access to both of those as well as the US-based GPS.

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        Yeah, I considered mentioning that there are alternatives, but there was a review just in 2024 by the FCC to see if they were going to continue to allow Galileo to be recieved. And even then I think it’s only two channels.

        Which tells me the FCC could determine it illegal and force an update, at least to commercial devices like cell phones.

        Take this with a grain of salt, its from memory. I would be happy to have someone verify this.

  • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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    12 hours ago

    Because having less knowledge always works out. Between this and the loss of FEMA, we should get even more “I didn’t vote for this”. Yes, you did. You just weren’t listening.