Thanks for your excellent replies, guys! I'll break this into 'bite sized' pieces for easy reading.

>> "The location and strength of the various high and low pressure areas around the storm are important because they steer the storm and in turn, each of these high and low areas interact with each other and affect where each other will move and the amount of movement and how much moisture and the temperature of the air that gets moved and how fast ... Quicksat provides much of the detail that is fed into the models that help the prediction processes that ultimately help predict where the hurricane will go."

Now I'm beginning to understand; the light is beginning to come on. My 'perspective' was too narrow and myopic. I didn't know what an important player QuikScat really is in helping initialize the global models. Let's just hope that the satellite, like the Mars Rovers, far exceeds it's projected life span. Maybe it will plug along for years still. It certainly is one of my 'favorite' satellites.

But still, just a little more clarification, please.

>> "If the satellite faltered, experts estimate that the accuracy of two- day forecasts would suffer by 10 percent and three-day forecasts by 16 percent, which could translate into miles of coastline and the difference between a city being evacuated or not ... That means more people disrupted, and more impact on the economy. On the other hand, we have to err on the side of the protection of life."

Do we issue watches/warnings for a section of coastline *3 days* away? The 'cone of uncertainty' at 3 days out would be effected without QuikScat, certainly, but the impact on *Warnings/Evacuations/Economic Impact??*

Hmmm.... I thought that the recon missions did an excellent job of determining the watches/warnings, once a storm got close enough to land for NHC to begin initiating the warnings/evacuatons and hoisting the hurricane warning flags for the effected areas.

And why the " ... difference between a city being evacuated or not ..." ?? If they're going to " ... err on the side of the protection of life ... " then the referred to cities *would* be evacuated. No "or not" about it. They *would* be!

And what about the statement "Weather aircraft and buoys can also obtain similar measurements near a storm, but they do not provide a 'constant flow' of data as QuikScat does." The keywords here are "near a storm".

Finally, I still feel that the statement "We would go blind. It would be significantly hazardous," is somewhat of an exaggeration. QuickScat may be very helpful for the numerical models, but certainly it's *not* the *only* input for the models, is it?

Thanks again for your replies. Just a little more clarification and I'll be satisfied.

May the force be with QuikScat !!