Satellite Funding Worries Federal Forecasters
MIAMI (CBS4) -- Funding for storm-tracking satellites is worrying the director of the and the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco told reporters Thursday that recent federal budget wrangling put the agency's hurricane-tracking satellites at risk. She said that future funding for NOAA's satellite program was "very much in limbo."
Lubchenco also says NOAA already has delayed the launch of one satellite that would have transmitted information for weather and climate forecasts. That means there's no replacement for the current satellite doing that work.
Hurricane center director Bill Read told The Associated Press on Friday that he shares Lubchenco's concern. He worries that funding cuts for satellites also would mean cuts for other vital equipment such as the "hurricane hunter" aircraft.
Hurricane season begins June 1.
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