We originally posted this before the 800 job cuts at the NOAA but it has been updated with the weather community speaking out to the disaster this could pose.
11 out of 38 NWS offices in central U.S. are now “critically” understaffed
Latest Update: The Trump administration has decided to cancel leases for two pivotal centers of NOAA, located in College Park, Maryland, and Norman, Oklahoma, that are essential for weather forecasting. DOGE is planning on cancelling leases to critical weather infrastructure like NCEP AND WPC. These buildings house all of the NWS and NOAAs modeling across the country with little to no backups as well as knowledge on radar systems with the WSR 88Ds.
What started as rumors turned into reality of potential budget cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 2025. This has sparked concerns among meteorologists, storm chasers, and scientists. While some remain silent, many within the weather community are voicing their worries about the potential impacts.
Why is NOAA essential?
NOAA is the foundation of our nation’s weather enterprise. They provide the essential data, models, forecasts, and warnings that protect lives and drive economic decisions. From satellites and radar to complex computer models and expert meteorologists, NOAA’s resources are indispensable for accurate and timely weather information.
The Backbone of Weather Information:
Weather information isn’t just about convenience; it’s critical for everything from the economy and energy production to national security and public health. The foundation of that information, even what you see on your favorite app, often comes directly from NOAA. NOAA’s contributions are multifaceted.
- Models and Data: NOAA’s numerical weather prediction models, like the American GFS and the high-resolution HRRR, are essential for forecasting. These models, run by NOAA or the National Weather Service, are the basis for many of the weather reports and apps we use. While the information may be simplified for public consumption, the underlying data originates from these federal sources. Furthermore, NOAA’s network of observations, including weather balloons, surface measurements, and satellite data, feeds directly into these models. This constant stream of information is crucial for accurate and up-to-date forecasts. Even the radar imagery on your phone likely relies on data from National Weather Service radars.
- Warnings and Alerts: Beyond models and observations, NOAA is responsible for issuing critical weather warnings and alerts for the entire nation. From tornadoes and hurricanes to floods and blizzards, NOAA’s Weather Forecast Offices and National Centers for Environmental Prediction provide the timely and accurate warnings that save lives and protect property. While other organizations may disseminate these warnings, it is NOAA that generates them, making them the cornerstone of our nation’s emergency preparedness efforts.
- Expertise: NOAA possesses expertise that AI and computer models cannot fully replicate. They excel at predicting complex weather phenomena like winter precipitation, which remains a significant challenge for even the most advanced technology. This expertise is crucial because NOAA provides the foundation for most weather alerts, even those seen on popular apps like Accuweather, The Weather Channel, and Fox Weather. Many people don’t realize how much they rely on NOAA for their daily weather information. As experts have pointed out, comments like “Why do we need the National Weather Service when we have weather on TV?” highlight a fundamental misunderstanding of how weather information reaches the public.
The Weather Community Speaks Out:
The concerns about potential NOAA cuts extend far beyond just a few individuals. Meteorologists at local news stations across the country, recognizing the direct impact on their ability to provide accurate and timely information to their communities, have also voiced their concerns. Nearly anyone affiliated with weather forecasts or the storm chasing community, from seasoned professionals to amateur enthusiasts, understands the critical role NOAA plays. They recognize that cuts to NOAA’s budget will ultimately diminish the quality and reliability of weather information available to everyone.
“Planned or ongoing bulk workforce cuts would irreparably harm the National Weather Service, NOAA, and their scientists who save innumerable lives by warning people in advance of tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, tsunamis, blizzards, and other life-threatening hazards. Many of you reading this may knowingly or unknowingly be alive today because of their work, or know someone who is. As a direct consequence of wounding the NWS and NOAA, the public would be less safe.
My personal mission to bring hurricane science, data, and forecasts to the public would not be possible without the weather observations, doppler radar stations, computer models, hurricane hunter aircraft, and weather satellites provided by NOAA and the NWS. Your favorite weather apps, TV meteorologists, and private weather companies would also be unable to function without this data or the civil servants who live and breathe it to synthesize it into public safety information.
All of these benefits cost each taxpayer the equivalent of a few cups of coffee per year, and surveys show most would be willing to pay much more. The American weather enterprise saves many, many times more money than it costs to run, making it one of the biggest bangs for your buck in the government. The impact of quality weather forecasts and infrastructure on society is multiplied many-fold by preventing economic disruptions, keeping public transportation efficient, and providing lead time to prepare for and mitigate disasters. Most importantly, it saves priceless lives.
Careful, long-term plans to streamline or reorient the weather enterprise in an evolving world are not bad, but this plan is insane. A feverish rush to take a cleaver to this workforce is self-destructive and dangerous to Americans who rely on the services they provide. It also cuts off the legs of young, passionate scientists who represent the future of meteorology in the new age of AI and other emerging technologies — the very people we need in the field right now.” -Dr. Levi Cowan of Tropical Tidbits.
The Public Speaks Out:
Posted on social media as his opinion shared of the NOAA firings: A DANGEROUS STORM IS THREATENING NOAA AND THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE… AGAIN
Dismantling and privatizing NOAA and the National Weather Service was a bad idea in 1995, and it’s a worse idea now.
In the summer of 1995, a bad idea was circulating in Washington, D.C. The broad-brush proposal was to eliminate the Commerce Department, the parent agency of NOAA and the National Weather Service. The U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs was tasked with taking testimony for and against the plan to merge NOAA and NWS’s responsibilities into other agencies and to farm some of their functions out to private companies.
Senator John Glenn’s office called one Friday and asked me to come to Washington to share my thoughts with the committee the following Tuesday. Senator William Roth of Delaware was the chairman and the only committee member in the room. Other senators sent members of their staffs.
Here’s a link courtesy of Google to the testimony the committee heard. My part starts on page 186.
I thought, of course, that the proposal was a terrible idea. The main point of my testimony was that public safety is one of government’s core functions. We don’t want critical services farmed out to the lowest bidder. Rigorous standards and public accountability are the cornerstones of any public safety system, including the data gathering, forecasting, and warning systems executed by the National Weather Service.
The profit motive has no place in the baseline weather services that Americans rely on every day. We should not be a nation of haves and have-nots when it comes to weather forecasts. A family farmer deserves the same alerts and expert predictions that the corporate farms up the road rely on to make critical decisions.
By the end of that first day of testimony, his body language told me that Senator Roth could see that the dismantling dog was not going to hunt. The idea was going nowhere. Which, of course, is exactly what happened.
Now, these same bad ideas have new life. And the demoralizing and thoughtless mass layoffs within NOAA and the National Weather Service take the destructive ideas to a new level.
Anybody in business knows that layoffs are sometimes necessary. But no competent CEO would arbitrarily fire recently recruited young talent along with experienced people who were only “on probation” because they received and accepted a promotion within the last year.
Indiscriminately firing skilled workers is bad in private business. Add the threat to public safety caused by haphazard and indiscriminate layoffs, and the government actions are impossible to justify by any rational, performance-based standard.
In my decades of interaction with NOAA and the National Weather Service, including of course, the National Hurricane Center, I have found the personnel to be exceptionally skilled, hard-working, and, most importantly, dedicated to serving the American public. Their commitment stands in dramatic contrast to the negative characterizations used to justify these mass layoffs.
In the modern age, we need a strong National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center more than ever. Hype and misinformation are endemic to modern media, social and otherwise. Only strong, professional, and official sources of information can cut through the noise to give life-saving forecasts credibility.
None of this reasoning addresses the morality or legality of the government’s actions. Those issues are for others to judge. But common sense tells us that critical research into how AI can improve hurricane forecasts, and development of new protocols for forecasting rapidly strengthening hurricanes will suffer when key people are indiscriminately removed from the already understaffed National Weather Service.
The administration’s approach defies common sense and sound management principles. In the private sector, such haphazard decision-making is well known to be a formula for failure. But when applied to government agencies tasked with keeping Americans safe, it’s not just counterproductive; it’s dangerous.The Weather Community Speaks Out
Storm chasers like Ryan Hall Y’all have joined the conversation, but they sometimes face backlash from followers who prioritize emotions over scientific facts. The debate highlights the tension between public perception and the critical role of NOAA in ensuring accurate weather forecasting and public safety. This underscores the importance of public education regarding NOAA’s essential functions.
“Anyone who works within the backends of weather knows that the National Weather Service is stretched thin as it is. The technological backbone of delivering critical forecast information (warnings and radar imagery are two relevant storm chaser examples) is on the verge of a significant breakdown. Forecasters’ ability to perform those warning operations is often heroic within some offices, as people pull double shifts to ensure public safety. Every media outlet depends on the NWS to assist in delivering crucial weather information.
Cutting the NWS workforce in any way will result in tornadoes going unwarned and lives being lost. This is a highly preventable tragedy; all we have to do is not cut one of the best investments we have made as a nation. As a page that works to educate and inform, this is a critical public safety issue.
Stay safe out there this season…”
Ryan Hall Ya’ll and Texas Storm Chasers
