ForecastWatch July Wrap-up and News

A look back at ForecastWatch blog posts and ClimateWatch newsletters over the last month.

July 30, 2025

July Wrap-Up

Critical Hurricane Forecasting Tool to End

NOAA scientists received a message from the agency that told them due to recent service changes, the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) will discontinue ingesting, processing, and distributing data by the end of July. These satellites are a primary source of information for scientists to monitor Arctic sea ice and hurricane development.

Federal hurricane forecasters say this will create an instant loss of roughly half of their capabilities, and that they can’t be expected to make accurate forecasts and warnings without these vital tools. This all comes just before the average peak of hurricane season.

Top Weather Apps in 2025 According to CNET

CNET, a trusted digital media publication that provides expert information, reviews, and analysis on consumer technologies, recently released its picks on the best weather phone applications in 2025. Maybe you like the built-in weather apps that Apple and Android provide. But if not, there are plenty of alternatives to find out what the weather will be like throughout the day.

Of course, weather providers’ forecast accuracy can be dependent on location. To find the most accurate weather forecast provider for your zip code, check out our ForecastAdvisor product at forecastadvisor.com!

Subscribe to the ClimateWatch newsletter!

Last year, our parent company Intellovations LLC launched a newsletter called ClimateWatch!

The goal is to bring you the week's most pressing climate issues, impacts, trends and forecasts, groundbreaking innovations, and actionable tips in our weekly newsletter dedicated to keeping you up-to-date on climate information. In the future, the plan is to include in-depth analyses from our experts in the newsletter. 

Check out the newsletters from July:

Assessment of Real-time ENSO Forecast Skill

The International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) has routinely disseminated ENSO forecasts each month since 2002. The forecasts include both deterministic and probabilistic forecasts, referred to as the IRI ENSO predictions plume, which provides insights into the expected ENSO conditions over the next nine overlapping 3-month periods.

A paper published in December 2024 evaluated 253 real-time ENSO forecasts issued between February 2002 and February 2023 and examined multimodal means of dynamical (DYN) and statistical (STAT) models.

A Record Amount of Flash Flood Warnings

If it seems like you’re hearing about flash flood warnings more than usual, you aren’t wrong. The National Weather Service has issued more flash flood warnings than in any other year since records began in 1986 through July 15th in 2025. More than 3,000 flash flood warnings, with the Appalachians, Ozarks, and Southern Plains hit the hardest.

Through July 15th, the number of flash flood emergencies issued is the second highest on record with 47. From July 1-15 alone, more than 1,200 reports of flooding were recorded, which is 75% above the early-July average.

Have you read our new report yet?

We recently published a new report: Global and Regional Weather Forecast Accuracy Overview 2021-2024!

Although there are many ways to measure accuracy, the overall goal of this report was to identify the most accurate weather forecast provider globally and regionally that produced forecasts out to 14 days, forecasted for all years 2021-2024, and forecasted for all forecast categories.

In our report, we provide a holistic analysis of weather forecast performance for 84 different metrics for forecasts made one to 14 days in advance. We examined over 600 million forecasts from 25 forecast providers from more than 2,100 locations around the world.

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