Posted on 06/28/2025 3:51:57 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Taxpayer-funded information provided to weather forecasters whose work ends up weather websites with annoying ads?
Here in north Idaho, if we want to see what the weather is, we just look out of the window.
Coincidentally there’s been a rash of unexplained weather-related phenomena lately — laser-like streaks across the sky, loud booming noises that aren’t thunder or sonic booms, etc. And they aren’t just anecdotal or blurry fotos on a cellphone. These phenomena have been observed (and recorded) via radar and satellite imagery. There’s some weird, obviously manmade stuff going on in the atmosphere lately, and too many amateur analysts are seeing it and — worse — sharing it. Could this be why the DoD wants to shut off access to its satellites?
I remember reading that 80% of weather forecasting is now private sector. Lots of economic sectors (agric, insurance, shipping, etc) rely on it.
Weather balloons.
Thanks for floating that idea. Uplifting attitude.
There is still NOAA and no shortage of private satellites. They will be just fine. They probably just sold the Navy data to China anyway.
This weather satellite fight between the USAF and NASA has been going on since the early 1960’s. NASA is given the lead on satellite development but never delivers so the USAF does it. It has only gotten worse since then.
What was a 1 meter cubed small and light satellite has become a 23 foot long 3 ton monster under NASA demands.
“”It’s not an issue of funding cuts,” says Mark Serreze,”
Mark Serreze said the Arctic would be ice-free by 2030. Oh No only 5 years left! minimum was in 2012.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/jul/11/arctic-ice-free
“In the past 10 days, the Arctic ocean has been losing as much as 150,000 square kilometres of sea a day, said Mark Serreze, director of the NSIDC.
“The extent [of the ice cover] is going down, but it is also thinning. So a weather pattern that formerly would melt some ice, now gets rid of much more. There will be ups and downs, but we are on track to see an ice-free summer by 2030. It is an overall downward spiral.”
These idiots fail to know that prediction has been made long before they were born and it has never happened.
Your right NOAA is the place to go for world weather.
NOAA should just ask SpaceX to use their Starlink sat bus since it’s in mass production already. It has laser links to neighboring birds too so no ground stations needed except one at homebase. Those huge phased arrays make for fine passive microwave radiometers and you could even do active SAR radar with them to see not only rain,hail,but also using backscatter water vapor content all with Doppler motion tracking. It wouldn’t be hard to tack on visible, IR and UV wideview and narrow view imagers on the edges of the bus folded down for stack and pack launch.
Falcon could yeet 26 at a time into polar orbit from vandy. Then use the ion thrusters to shift the orbits into a continuous train of them one after another you would get coverage every 3.5 minutes in a 90 minute orbital slot.
Send up 10 falcon 9 flocks you would have 260 birds in polar orbits that could see in real time the entire planets atmosphere pole to pole. SpaceX could get this done in 6 months from the go word.
The DOD is getting Starshield made using Starlink sat buses those will host all kinds of radar and optical payloads. Including active and passive microwave radiometers and IR optics.
NOAA is fedgov they don’t have the limits that private satellite imagery nor data is subject too. NOAA should go right to SpaceX and order a flock of birds set up for multi spectral imagery and bistatic radars.
Ten Falcon 9 launches could put up complete global network with real time imagery and 3.5 min active radar coverage over any spot pole to pole. That level of radar coverage would not only allow rear time storm tracking world wide but also wind field data the Doppler can see not only rain but also atmospheric water vapor and particulates in motion. This would be a bonanza for storm forecasting and tracking plus prediction of wind turbine output if you can see the wind fetch over the whole globe your models become predictions down to the 15 min block level.
SpaceX already stamps out Starlink buses by the hundreds per year. They just did their 89th launch of falcon for the year and it’s only June...you only need ten of those for a global NOAA network.
“You want crappy useless data, go make it up yourself from climate change models”.
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