Pssssssssst! Just a reminder - ReTHUGs cut NOAA's hurricane research funds last year [View all]

[malaise]

I'm betting they have lots of regrets about now

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/04/08/the_u_s_government_has_cut_funding_to_a_key_hurricane_research_program_and.html
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An ongoing, largely successful effort to accelerate improvements in hurricane forecasts has been cut significantly, and meteorologists aren’t happy about it.

The Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program is a 10-year initiative that launched in 2010, and it’s designed to enhance scientists’ ability to anticipate rapid fluctuations in track and intensity for tropical cyclones, which routinely rank among the costliest and deadliest storms on Earth. In its first five years, HFIP has produced a state-of-the-art hurricane forecast model that’s helped to improve hurricane forecast accuracy by 20 percent since 2010, among other achievements. That’s amazing progress, essentially making a five-day forecast as accurate as a two-day forecast was just 10 years ago.



Hurricane-focused meteorologists say the most disheartening thing about the budget cut to HFIP is that NOAA is giving up on longer-term goals. Of the dozen or so meteorologists I contacted, reactions included shock and incredulity:

Eric Blake, a forecaster at NOAA’s National Hurricane Center: “It’s hard to believe this is a good program to slash funding when it appears to be working. I understand budget tightening, but a cut of two-thirds seems extreme.”

Kerry Emanuel, hurricane researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: “I do not know what kind of politics is responsible for this, but the decision clearly does not serve the interests of our country.”



https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/04/07/funding-for-promising-hurricane-forecast-improvement-program-slashed/
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NOAA has slashed by more than two-thirds the budget for a National Weather Service program that has led to groundbreaking improvements in hurricane forecasts and that is on the brink of more. James Franklin, a manager at the National Hurricane Center, made this revelation in a presentation at the National Hurricane Conference in Austin, Texas last week.

Initiated in 2008, the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program (HFIP) had funding of $14 million in FY2014 which was reduced to $4.5 million in the current fiscal year.

Since it launch, HFIP has focused on achieving gains in hurricane intensity forecasts which had made little progress in the previous three decades, despite the significant strides in the accuracy of track forecasts.

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Well done ReTHUGs