Alex Knapp

Alex Knapp, Forbes Staff


12/27/2012 @ 10:09AM |4,019 views

Going Off The Fiscal Cliff Could Mean Missing The Next Hurricane Sandy

ATLANTIC OCEAN - SEPTEMBER 13:  In this handou...

(Image credit: Getty Images North America via @daylife)

One of the government services that most of us take for granted is weather forecasting. It’s the satellite data provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that meteorologists in the U.S. rely on for accurate atmospheric data to make weather predictions. In particular, predicting the path of extreme weather conditions like hurricanes absolutely depend on NOAA’s polar weather satellites.

For example, if it weren’t for NOAA satellites, weather forecasters likely would not have been able to predict that Hurricane Sandy’s “left hook” into the Eastern Seaboard, which enabled local governments to undertake emergency preparations for the storm.

Unfortunately, due to what Undersecretary of Commerce Jane Lubchenco called, “chronic management problems,” it appears increasingly likely that the U.S. will have to suffer a at least a year without satellites starting around 2017 as the old satellites reach the end of their life cycle and the new ones are launched. And right now there’s no other alternative for getting that data,. The government is scrambling to do what it can to minimize the amount of time between the death of the old satellites and the launch of the new, but right now it looks like there will be at least some small gap.

But if we hit the Fiscal Cliff, all bets might be off.

According to the Aerospace Industries Association,  a trade association representing aerospace manufacturers, the spending cuts mandated if the U.S. hits the Fiscal Cliff would include an 8.2 percent cut to NOAA’s weather satellite program. The association estimates that this would cost the jobs of 1,000 people who “design, build and operate weather satellites that have no equivalent or redundant system in the public or private sector.”

The association also warns that as a result, the expected one year weather satellite gap could be much, much longer. To be sure, the association has an interest in avoiding the resulting defense sequestration if the Fiscal Cliff hits, but given the history of the program and NOAA’s, a longer satellite gap as a result of sequestration is pretty likely.

Regarding the potential for a loss of weather data, Craig J. Craft, commissioner of emergency management for Nassau County told the New York Times in October that ”We cannot afford to lose any enhancement that allows us to accurately forecast any weather event coming our way.”

But if Congress and the President can’t reach an agreement to avoid the Fiscal Cliff, local officials like Craft may not have a choice.


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  • Hi Alex,

    Didn’t NOAA lost their QuikSCAT satellite and their ability to track hurricane in real time in 2009. As per information in Indian Media this information was provided by ISRO’s satellite. If that is true then better way of cost cutting will be to continue the present arrangement of “outsourcing” the task of getting the data to Indian satellites. Just a perspective.

    Thanks and Regards,
    Milind Agarwal.