Seen at Jeff Masters’ blog at Weather Underground:
At a news conference last week, incoming National Hurricane Center director Bill Proenza issued a plea for new funding to replace the aging QuikSCAT satellite. Ocean surface winds measured by the QuikSCAT satellite are one of the most important sources of data used by hurricane forecasters, and losing the satellite would be a major blow.[.]
The QuikSCAT satellite was launched in 1999, and was originally scheduled for a two-year mission. The satellite is now entering its 8th year of operation, and is down to its backup sensors. QuikSCAT could fail at any time. A replacement would cost about $400 million dollars and take at least four years to construct and launch, according to Proenza. No replacement is currently planned.
I thought this was all a part of the Administration’s new tropical weather protection plan, Plan Ostrich. If we can’t see the hurricanes, they can’t strike us.