Loss of key US satellite data could send hurricane forecasting back 'decades'

It's part of the Administration's war on ... Florida?

It could help lower insurance costs.

The writing has been on the wall for decades, especially since 2015 or so when Congress basically started shuttering DMSP.

Insurance companies aren't going to charge less for not knowing, they'll charge more.

That's not at all how insurance companies price risk. Unknown risk is more risk, and more risk is more expensive. Therefore, unknown hurricane data is more risky and thus more expensive.

If you know your car's engine is going to need replaced after exactly 100,000 miles, you know to save up for a new engine or a new car - and you know how long you have to save, so you can precisely set aside an appropriate figure every month.

If you know your car's engine will die sometime within the next 15,000 miles, you know you need to start saving up immediately, but b/c you don't know when in the next 15,000 miles you have to rush your saving.

If you have no idea when your car's engine is going to die, you are likely to end up dead engine and little to no savings.

I was about to say this -- the impact is to deep red states -- Florida, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama.

They all voted for this with extreme skew towards the current policies. What is the point of trying to save this satellite data if the very people most affected dont care for it?

The rebuilds happen with federal FEMA dollars and there is an entire cottage industry of re-builders who take federal funds, rebuild homes -- and then do it again two years later. https://www.fema.gov/node/what-home-repair-assistance

Hurricane risk has been grossly exaggerated for years. Every year people say it will be the end of Florida as we know it. But those promised hurricanes never come. The worst is some flooding and damage at coastal areas, but it’s always anti-climactic.

The real reason insurance is high is because of fraudulent claim risk. Hurricanes themselves are more or less a solved problem in Florida. That data is useless.

"I'm not moving the goalposts because my argument doesn't have any"

> Hurricane risk has been grossly exaggerated for years

Year-over-year, economic impacts and disruptions due to tropical cyclones are dramatically rising. Most of this is an exposure issue. But long-tail events - like Andrew's utter devastation of Homestead in 1992 or Katrina's unique confluence of storm surge in urban/suburban parishes in LA - can and do happen.

One day, there will be another Galveston or Homestead.

> Hurricanes themselves are more or less a solved problem in Florida.

I'm going to go with less, though I suppose you could call "experience widespread destruction, get bailed out by the federal government, rebuild in the same spot" to be a permanent solution.

Florida has maybe solved cat 1-2 hurricanes.

There won’t be another Andrew because the building codes were changed so that all new construction must withstand category 5 storm force, which when Andrew came around was not a requirement. Over time, there is a natural selection that occurs where destroyed buildings are replaced with stronger buildings with stricter codes.

I'm from Florida - born and raised. I've never once heard anyone call any hurricane "the end of Florida as we know it". What I have heard, and seen, is extreme damages caused to homes and cars even hundreds of miles away from the eye of the storm.

In 2022, Hurricane Ian caused extreme flooding in the Orlando-region, including in areas that have never suffered from hurricane flooding before. For me personally, all 3 cars parked at my house were total losses b/c of the flood damage.

The extreme and extensive damages in the Appalachian region last fall is another great example of hurricane risk not being "grossly exaggerated".

What about the flooding?

This is such a bad article. They shut down this specific program in 2015, and switched to JPSS instead.

There is no war on anyone, and this has nothing to do with Trump, DOGS, or Climate change. Rather there were too many satellite failures, leaving just a single operating one in orbit.

>The worst is some flooding and damage at coastal areas, but it’s always anti-climactic.

The residents of what used to be Ft. Meyers Beach would probably disagree with you.

>Hurricanes themselves are more or less a solved problem in Florida.

I have been in Florida for nearly a decade now. I'd say that the above statement is at best, disingenuous. It's just not true. MAYBE Cat1 hurricanes are a solved problem, but nothing above that. The busiest economic center in Florida (Miami's Brickell area) is 6 feet above sea level. Any major storm locks that part of town down for days. My own building's parking lot is 5 feet above sea level, and yes, it's flooded every time we have a storm.

....all of which makes them more expensive to insure (and build, obviously)...

There was no reason not to continue providing the data from the satellite. It’s still operational.

> It's part of the Administration's war on ... Florida?

The administration of Florida has a war on the idea of climate change:

* "Ron DeSantis signs bill scrubbing ‘climate change’ from Florida state laws": https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/16/desa...

* "Florida Officials Barred from Referencing “Climate Change”: https://climate.law.columbia.edu/content/florida-officials-b...

This allows (certain) Florida politicians to put their head in the sand even more than they already have.

> There won’t be another Andrew because the building codes were changed so that all new construction must withstand category 5 storm force

I sincerely hope you're right, but there is plenty of evidence suggesting that this will not be the case, owing to a multitude of factors:

- not all housing stock is <30 years old and has been properly retrofitted to meet state specs

- the climates around the Gulf, which tend to be more humid, can lead to premature degradation of things like strengthened anchor bolts and roof attachments

- there continue to be immense factors related to cost and time-to-build which provide significant negative pressure towards cutting corners and minimum-compliance which may mitigate some of the attendant benefits of strengthened building codes

An event like Andrew _is the selection event_ that you're referring to.

I agree with both of you. Unnecessary fear mongering, but also a shortsighted pointless (malicious?) move.

That day being essentially yesterday.

Since Katrina, the next 10 costliest hurricanes are all after.

We don't dwell on the Ikes, Idas, and Helenes because they often happen to smaller communities and they've become common enough that we've gotten a little fatigued.

I strongly suspect that said states will still find a way to get federal funds for relief, whether from the president directly (since Trump's stated plan is to replace FEMA with his own discretion) or, in an emergency, through a very quick act from congress. Of course, it's much cheaper to mitigate hurricane damage _before_ it's done so gutting all the planning related services as the Trump administration seems wont to do will only either hurt a lot of people in red states or, more likely, cost the country more than if they'd left NOAA and FEMA alone.

Funding was stopped by congress in 2015. The time to complain about this was 10 years ago.

This is true, however it does provide unending entertainment as seen by the top voted comments wondering how this is a secret war on the courts and Europe - lol

Republican governors will demand the aid and sometimes get it, but at the federal level it doesn't count against them to deny the aid. What are the constituents going to do, vote for a Democrat?

There may come a day when they have saved up enough grievance against the Republicans to look for an alternative. But right now they have a solid foundation of anti-woke grievance and they can be counted on to keep voting the same way.

Well put.

> What is the point of trying to save this satellite data if the very people most affected dont care for it?

Because people still should not suffer... jeez.

When you have a president who can predict the paths of hurricanes with a sharpie you don't really need all those expensive satellites.

And threaten to nuke them if they don't go where he says.

Do you realize how little people in these areas pay attention to these forecasts? Hurricanes until you hit CAT 5 are viewed as bad rain storms that may or may not take the power out for a week. There is little evacuation or prep for the majority of people there as they are consistently prepared. Even still, the real threat of a hurricane isn’t the hurricane itself but the storm surge and all the tornadoes they create. Neither of those can be predicted with any accuracy so please help me understand why pathing is important?

I mean CA does nothing to mitigate fire risk and still gets funding and cries when they don’t. So why would any other state be different?

No the time to complain about them ceasing data provision is right now because it just happened.