"Funding for Promising Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program Slashed"

"NOAA has slashed by more than two-thirds the budget for a National Weather Service program that has led to groundbreaking improvements in hurricane forecasts and that is on the brink of more.  James Franklin, a manager at the National Hurricane Center, made this revelation in a presentation at the National Hurricane Conference in Austin, Texas last week.

Initiated in 2008, the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program (HFIP) had funding of $14 million in FY2014 which was reduced to $4.5 million in the current fiscal year.

Since it[s] launch, HFIP has focused on achieving gains in hurricane intensity forecasts which had made little progress in the previous three decades, despite the significant strides in the accuracy of track forecasts."

Jason Samenow reports for the Washington Post April 7, 2015.