DOD will turn off three weather satellites used in Hurricane forecasting July 31st

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7. Forecasters Lose Key Satellites Ahead of Hurricane Season Meteorologist Explains Why It Matters

Jul 05, 2025

The author is a meteorologist and research program manager at University of Wisconsin-Madison. This story was first published in The Conversation and is reprinted here with permission.

By CHRIS VAGASKY
About 600 miles off the west coast of Africa, large clusters of thunderstorms begin organizing into tropical storms every hurricane season. They aren’t yet in range of Hurricane Hunter flights, so forecasters at the National Hurricane Center rely on weather satellites to peer down on these storms and beam back information about their location, structure and intensity.

The satellite data helps meteorologists create weather forecasts that keep planes and ships safe and prepare countries for a potential hurricane landfall.

Now, meteorologists are about to lose access to three of those satellites.

On June 25, 2025, the Trump administration issued a service change notice announcing that the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, DMSP, and the Navy’s Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center would terminate data collection, processing and distribution of all DMSP data no later than June 30. The data termination was postponed until July 31 following a request from the head of NASA’s Earth Science Division.
https://loosecannon.substack.com/p/forecasters-lose-key-satellites-ahead