to utilize everything that is in orbit that is contributing scientific readings.
The "Hurricane Hunters" aren't just NOAA pilots but they rotate flights with the Airforce and their pilots to fly into the cyclones and release dropsondes. and since they cut a bunch, you have less flights into these storms.
Chaos at FEMA, NOAA as hurricane season starts
By Chelsea Harvey, Adam Aton, Thomas Frank | 06/02/2025 06:11 AM
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At the same time, NWS’ Hurricane Hunter program, which flies aircraft into the hearts of tropical cyclones to collect information on wind speeds and other conditions, is operating at reduced capacity. The measurements feed hurricane forecasts in real time and help long-term research on tropical cyclones. A recent Government Accountability Office report found that staffing shortages and aircraft problems have led to flight cancellations in recent years.
The Trump administration laid off several employees involved in the Hurricane Hunter missions. It’s also proposed eliminating funding for NOAA’s network of laboratories and cooperative research institutes, including the University of Miami’s Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies, whose scientists collect key data on the Hurricane Hunter flights. If Congress approved the budget cuts, NOAA would lose access to many of the laboratories that help build and maintain its weather forecasts.
The Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, housed at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, analyzes satellite data on strengthening hurricanes. It’s the only institute in the country that monitors hurricane wind fields in real time as they form and intensify, according to institute Director Tristan L’Ecuyer, making it an essential component of NOAA’s hurricane forecasting system.
Meanwhile, staffing cuts have hit some of the NOAA offices responsible for designing and maintaining national weather models, like the National Centers for Environmental Prediction. “We’ve lost some of the staff that takes care of the quality control, that takes care of making sure that the models are really performing up to par,” Friday said. With less data to feed the weather models and less quality control, weather forecasts won’t improve over time — and they may even degrade, some experts said.
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They recently upgraded the supercomputers used to run the various global (e.g, GFS) and convective (e.g., NAM) models, usually 4 times per day. They get fed all kinds of data. The so-called "spaghetti models" are mostly aviation (I think including military) data-generated. And although NOAA has just barely been able to get some "newer" geostationary satellites in orbit - what are now known as GOES-EAST and GOES-WEST (plus I think a polar one recently), anything up there that can "fill in blind spots" helps with forecasting (even if it's older stuff) - and notably to look for what is becoming more and more common - frequent instances of "rapid intensification" (RI) of hurricanes due to climate change.
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