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submitted 8 months ago by Stamau123@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

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.

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[-] bfg9k@lemmy.world 71 points 8 months 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 48 points 8 months 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.

[-] jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works 19 points 8 months ago

think about how much more you could charge poor people if they get severely injured by the hurricane

[-] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 18 points 8 months ago

Petty revenge for not agreeing with trump's sharpie forecast.

[-] scutiger@lemmy.world 17 points 8 months 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 9 points 8 months 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.

[-] Justas@sh.itjust.works 11 points 8 months ago

Remember kids, when WFP asked Musk to feed every starving person in the world for a year for just 6 billion dollars, or 2% of his wealth at the time, he gave the money to his own foundation instead.

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[-] BastingChemina@slrpnk.net 68 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months 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.

Edit: here is the source of the quote, an article from September 2024 https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4907338-heritage-foundation-plan-weather-service/

[-] TimewornTraveler@lemmy.dbzer0.com 25 points 8 months ago

Huh. Wow. So they actually did project this plan. And it really is about commercialization of weather forecasting and denying climate change. America is so deeply fucked from letting him get elected... ugh.

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[-] njm1314@lemmy.world 67 points 8 months 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 19 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months 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 8 points 8 months 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

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[-] frezik 55 points 8 months 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.

[-] lostoncalantha@lemmy.world 38 points 8 months 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.

[-] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 11 points 8 months ago

Yeah they voted for him but they didn't actually think he'd do those things.

[-] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 36 points 8 months ago

You know what?

Go ham. The south Atlantic coast and the gulf coast voted for this. Now comes the “find out” part. I am genuinely out of fucks to give. Enjoy your hurricanes and the non-response you’ll get from the now-gutted FEMA. See if I fucking care. Have fun machine-gunning your own foot.

[-] Quadhammer@lemmy.world 10 points 8 months ago

Privatize the weather lmao

Just draw where you want it to go with a sharpie ezpz

[-] MeekerThanBeaker@lemmy.world 33 points 8 months ago

In lieu of actual vital data, the DOD will be sending out tRump-branded black Sharpies.

[-] multifariace@lemmy.world 32 points 8 months ago

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

[-] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 30 points 8 months 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.

[-] fluxion@lemmy.world 29 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Apparently hurricanes, which are the only outside force that regularly invades and obliterates American cities on American soil, costing billions in damages, multiple times a year...

... are not as important as these undisclosed "security concerns" that DoD somehow finds more important/immediate.

What's the real story? Protecting Americans from hurricanes is too "woke" or something?

[-] nuxi@lemmy.world 21 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Probably the longstanding GOP goal of privatizing everything. To get public support for that, they first have to cripple the public service.

[-] fossilesque@mander.xyz 11 points 8 months ago
[-] NikkiDimes@lemmy.world 11 points 8 months ago

Oh nifty, Project 2025 again, that thing that Trump is totally not following to a T

Why must we live amongst such a vast swath of absolute babbling morons?

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[-] dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 28 points 8 months ago

including those monitoring changes to sea ice extent in the polar regions

Ah, there it is. Kicking climate change under the carpet again, I see.

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[-] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 25 points 8 months ago

As ever, the Trump Regime is a colony of dumb and malicious assholes.

Trump is making himself the enemies of farmers and coastal communities alike. If I were an evil overlord, I would want my logistics to be rock solid.

🤦

[-] pinheadednightmare@lemmy.world 21 points 8 months ago

Can some one send this mother fucker on his way already?

[-] lupusblackfur@lemmy.world 21 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

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

[-] NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 18 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months 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

[-] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months 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.

[-] NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

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.

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[-] blarth@thelemmy.club 16 points 8 months ago

Get ready for sharpie hurricane forecasting!

[-] BipolarSilence@lemm.ee 12 points 8 months ago
[-] NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago

What makes you think this regime wants to help anyone?

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[-] Freshparsnip@lemm.ee 11 points 8 months ago

Isn't Trump's house in Florida?

[-] KingPorkChop@lemmy.ca 12 points 8 months ago

One day we will all rejoice in the destruction of that shit hole.

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[-] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 11 points 8 months ago

WTF is a hurricane? It's just a storm, get over it.

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[-] Tja@programming.dev 11 points 8 months ago

Any hurricane that comes by surprise will be nuked, not to worry.

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[-] Rhaedas@fedia.io 10 points 8 months 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.

[-] Gumbyyy@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago

scrambling to understand the rationale behind the abrupt termination

Stop trying to look for any rationale behind anything this administration does. There is none.

[-] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago
[-] collapse_already@lemmy.ml 8 points 8 months ago

I gues we shouldn't have made fun of moron for thinking Georgia was Alabama. Disrupting climate change tracking is just an added bonus for super petty grudge holder. Prosecutorial immunity for elected officials was a terrible mistake.

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this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2025
568 points (100.0% liked)

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