As I write this, there’s a desperate search for dozens of girls, missing from a flood where the Guadalupe River rose 26 feet in 45 minutes. More than 80 people drowned at the time I sent this column. Yet critical data about this freakish weather hitting America and the rest of the world is about to go offline, at the moment in history that we need it the most. Don’t let the government withhold this lifesaving information from its people, for hurricanes, floods or other disasters.
I’m pretty familiar with the Guadalupe River. When my wife and I were college students, we went inter-tubing there. It’s normally pretty safe. But these are not normal times. There are a dozen dead already, and we can only pray that the toll will not rise from this extreme weather.
We need to be tracking the weather more than ever. And I have some bad news.
“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,” writes Chris Vagasky, a Meteorologist and Research Program Manager from the University of Wisconsin, who is worried about NOAA having to track hurricanes without the best technology available.
According to Vagasky “But while visible and infrared satellite imagery are valuable tools for hurricane forecasters, they provide only a basic picture of the storm. It’s like a doctor diagnosing a patient after a visual exam and checking their temperature. For more accurate diagnoses, meteorologists rely on the DMSP satellites. The three satellites orbit Earth 14 times per day with special sensor microwave imager/sounder instruments, or SSMIS. These let meteorologists look inside the clouds, similar to how an MRI in a hospital looks inside a human body. With these instruments, meteorologists can pinpoint the storm’s low-pressure center and identify signs of intensification. Precisely locating the center of a hurricane improves forecasts of the storm’s future track. This lets meteorologists produce more accurate hurricane watches, warnings and evacuations.” And that could also be enhanced abilities to track any storm, including the one slamming Texas. Already, Tropic Storm Chantal is lurking off the South Carolina Coast. On a recent service project, I saw how much damage a tropical storm can do.
Evidently, DMSP satellites, built between the 1990s and 2000s, were only supposed to last a few years. But like a Timex, they’re still ticking. The problem is that the clock is ticking on their availability. NOAA leaders plan to shut them down over “cybersecurity” concerns just as forecasts are showing a highly active hurricane season (according to Rachel Frazin with The Hill), making this a national security issue. According to Rebecca Hersher with NPR, the Navy was not specific about what the cybersecurity threat that would justify leaving us clueless before Mother Nature. But maybe being more aggressive against Russia in the cybersecurity arena would be a good start.
There is some good news. There’s a new defense meteorological satellite replacement, the ML-1A, according to Vagasky. But the government has not announced whether the data from these satellites will be shared with the National Hurricane Center, for reasons no one can say why. Moreover, “the loss of satellite data, along with other cuts to data, funding and staffing, could ultimately put more lives at risk,” Vagasky adds. And we’ve just experienced a lot of deadly hurricanes like Helene, the worst since Hurricane Katrina, along with Milton last year.
If you’re as concerned as I am, contact the White House, NOAA and your member of Congress. Ask them to give the National Hurricane Center the ML-1A access, or keep DMSP going and use our cybersecurity prowess to defend our country or take the fight to our adversaries.
John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Georgia. His views are his own. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu. His “X” account is JohnTures2.
