1 Week Out, NOAA Satellites Made Sandy Landfall Call w/i 5 Miles - But Fleet Funding Failing
EDIT
A month before the 1,000-mile-wide storm struck the Northeast, at the height of the hurricane season, the geostationary satellite that monitors the Caribbean and Atlantic -- where Sandy gathered strength -- stopped working. While there are dozens of American weather satellites in orbit, these geostationary spacecraft are crucial to predicting dangerous weather patterns.
Luckily, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, had a backup satellite to scramble into place. Without it, the early warning for Sandy's impending strike on the northeast might not have been as accurate.
That close call has meteorologists worried that, in this era of shrinking budgets, aging satellites might not get the expensive repairs they need to operate, and NOAA might not be able to purchase backup satellites.
Satellites like these are expensive -- $1 billion each -- and they take five years to build and launch. Compare that to the cost of major storms, like Sandy which is estimated to have inflicted nearly $80 billion in damage in New York and New Jersey alone. Not to mention the cost in human lives.
EDIT
http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/04/us/us-superstorm-threat/index.html
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The Republicans, naturally, gutted it. Indeed, when Cx was canceled Obama was called out by a lot of people for "wasting money on Earth Science." (Generally the same people who are basically denialists.)
Unfortunately science is taking a back burner to pork projects like SLS. 
