On Tuesday, 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 Wednesday 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.
Read the rest of the story at Local 10.