Comment by saulrh

I'll point out some higher order impacts of this, since the article doesn't: Losing these forecasts will be catastrophic for American farmers. Crops literally live and die on weather forecasts; forecasts tell farmers what to plant, when to plant it, how to plant it, how to water it, and when to harvest it. Without these forecasts we will see negative effects on the entire American agricultural industry and all of the people it feeds, US citizens or not. I'm not a farmer myself, so I can't tell you exactly how severe the impact will be, but there will be an impact, whether it's an immediate crop failure and outright famine this year or "only" shockwaves bouncing through our entire economy as farmers plant the wrong crops and go out of business over the next few years. This is one of the scenarios I've been most worried about when it comes to the stability of human civilization, up there alongside the looming specter of nuclear war and the randomisation of US foreign policy.