Hurricane Sandy has made news around the world as the unusually large storm coincided with an early cold front and high tide over the densely populated northeastern coast of the United States. The storm, which hit the US mid-atlantic region on Monday October 29, produced 4.5m storm surge and 145 kph winds in New York City on October 30. 54 people died as a result of the storm’s passage through the Caribbean and another 40 in the United States. Approximately five million people are without power as of October 30 and flood waters have completely destroyed many coastal regions. New York City’s mayor has compared the devastation to World War II.

It could have been much worse. Sandy was a well anticipated storm. Meteorologists began sounding the alarm days ago, and major population centers heeded the warnings. Air and rail transportation was shut down in advance across large swathes of the US. Coastal regions and islands were evacuated. Government offices, schools, and the stock exchange shut down well before the storm made landfall. None of these preparations could have happened without quality and timely satellite imaging. “We cannot afford to lose any enhancement that allows us to accurately forecast any weather event coming our way,” said Craig J. Craft, commissioner of emergency management for Nassau County in New York.

Weather forecasts are critically important for the prediction and tracking of storms. Those forecasts depend on satellite data to observe and then model the behaviour of storms. This capability has come to be expected as a part of daily life in a technologically advanced age. People in the developed world are accustomed to checking satellite weather maps on their television news programs or pinpoint postal-code specific forecasts online. However, the satellite coverage that makes such forecasts possible can’t be taken for granted.

According to a New York Times report, experts foresee that the US is facing a period without sufficient satellite coverage as a result of delays in launching replacements, financial problems, and management issues. This issue was first raised by experts in the last two years.

Weather forecasters and natural disaster experts rely on environmental satellite data to create accurate computer models which produce reliable results. The path of major storms like Hurricane Sandy are predicted utilizing a number of different computer models and projected approximately five days in advance. With the reliable information available for Sandy public safety officials were warning millions of citizens to prepare for the worst and for affected states like New York and New Jersey to declare a state of emergency.

Experts have warned that the existing polar satellites are aging and have nearly reached their expected lifetimes. The polar satellites in orbit are intended to be replaced by the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), a polar-orbiting environmental monitoring satellite system that has encountered numerous management delays. The scheduled launch date for the JPSS is now 2017. JPSS will be equipped with instruments to measure the atmosphere and ocean conditions such as wind speed and surface temperature. The major concern is that the existing system will fail before JPSS is ready for launch, thus creating a gap in coverage and capability. Currently the JPSS satellites have a two and four year delay in their deployment schedules. This past summer, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) and NASA ran three independent reviews of the mismanaged program and have streamlined the program to try to get it back on track.

The situation is made worse by the fact that in 2011 Suomi NPP was launched to address this upcoming gap, but due to a number of technical glitches and problems the spacecraft will not operate for its full design life. As a result of this there may be a gap in forecasting capability from 2016 to 2018. Without adequate advance notice, the next Sandy might find a more vulnerable population in its path.

Weather reports, like the one below, could become less accurate if aging satellites aren’t replaced in time:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbn8NqDIz3Y&w=640&h=480]