Hurricane predictions difficult without plane and cruise ship data

While you’ve probably heard about the positive environmental effects that emerge as an unintended consequence of the COVID-19 travel bans, you may not have expected it to have impeded our ability to predict the weather too. The advanced meteorological sensors onboard commercial cruise liners and passenger jets collect a lot of information about the climate in the more obscure regions of the globe and weather experts are now highlighting that transport feedback is the second most important data behind satellites, for extreme weather predictions. Cinchar, the meteorologist for CNN, is stating that the cone of uncertainty for hurricane predictions is likely to be much bigger this year.