NOAA to discontinue some weather data, but delays cutoff
Federal authorities say they will discontinue some weather data — but they are delaying the original plan to do so by one month.
Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said that it would phase out data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, which has collected weather data for military operations for more than 50 years.
'Due to recent service changes, the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) and Navy's Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC) will discontinue ingest, processing and distribution of all DMSP data no later than June 30, 2025,' the original notice said.
'This service change and termination will be permanent,' it added.
Rick Spinrad, who led NOAA under the Biden administration, told The Hill in an email that this is a 'big deal.'
'It is ahead of schedule and is forcing [the National Weather Service] to rush to accept data from DoD's newest meteorological satellite,' Spinrad said.
'That will be a serious challenge and might mean that the National Hurricane Center is without some critical data for the next several weeks/months during hurricane season. It will most likely lead to some degradation to NHC's track and intensity forecasts,' he said.
On Monday, in a new notice, NOAA said that the discontinuation would be delayed by one month, adding that the original decision was made because of a 'cybersecurity risk.'
'On June 30th, FNMOC had planned to decommission the …system in Monterey to mitigate a significant cybersecurity risk,' it said. 'However, late on Friday, June 27th, CNMOC received a request from … NASA to postpone the removal and to continue processing and distributing DMSP data through July 31st.'
'FNMOC now expects to decommission DMSP processing no later than July 31st,' it added.
The announcements come after a tumultuous few months at the nation's weather agencies under the Trump administration.
The Trump administration fired hundreds of NOAA employees, but its National Weather Service later warned that some offices were 'critically understaffed' and began hiring more meteorologists.
The U.S. is currently in hurricane season, which runs from June 1 through Nov. 30.
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