Yeah, this is another reason to think that trusting any .gov agency

is either idiotic or insane.
A legacy of mismanagement, budget overruns, and slipping deadlines means that satellites in both programs may well fail before their replacements are launched and become fully functional.
...
"The ability to make timely and accurate weather forecasts should be a top priority for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)," said Smith. "Unfortunately our next generation weather satellites have been plagued by problems, including dysfunctional management, delays and cost overruns. As a result, gaps in our domestic weather data could jeopardize our forecasting capabilities, putting American lives and property at risk."
Isn't that just a freaking JOYOUS thing to read?

Add in this:
Concerns above NOAA computer security are not new. In July 2014, The Department of Commerce Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a report that outlined significant security deficiencies in the NOAA networks, urging officials to make system updates a top priority. In October, several NOAA networks were hacked by an outside source. NOAA will not comment publicly on who might have been behind the hack (or why they covered it up for a month), but former Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA) says he was told by officials in the Department of Commerce that China was responsible.

Michael Wessel, a Commissioner on the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, agrees, saying that it presents significant problems to national security. "The services and data provided by NOAA can be critical to our warfighters in a potential conflict not only for basic weather-related information but also because NOAA jointly operates the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), which provides cloud cover imagery that is utilized by the Air Force."
Well, I can answer the one: they knew what a monumental fuckup it was, and didn't want to have to deal with the consequences.  Very adult decision, right?

Just think about it: the PRC gets frisky in the Pacific, and the weather data suddenly becomes somewhere between 'unreliable' and 'non-existent'.  Nightmare fuel.  And the sunsabitches are STILL playing 'decline to comment' games.