CNN: National Weather Service Is Hanging On By A Thread, Lives In Danger Thanks To Trump

With staff and resource cutbacks continuing, the
National Weather Service is in more trouble
than previously though, putting the lives
of people facing dangerous weather at risk 

For the past couple of months, we've been reporting on the trials and tribulations of the National Weather Service.  

The Trump administration is dismantling the world's premier weather forecasting service. Given that the United States has some of the world's worst weather, frankly, that's dangerous. 

Late this past week, CNN reported that things are even worse than we thought. 

Reports CNN:

"The National Weather Service is in worse shape than previously known according to interviews with current and former meteorologists, due to a combination of layoffs, early retirements and pre-existing vacancies. 

CNN continued:

"Several current and former agency meteorologists told CNN they are concerned forecasts and life-saving warnings are not going to be issued in time."

That worry has been a familiar refrain as the agency undergoes steep staff cutbacks and budget slashes and just general disrespect. I think the National Weather Service is being degraded even faster than I thought oiit would. I'm more fearful than ever that Americans will unnecessarily die. For no reason. 

Virtually all meteorologists I have run across are smart, really know what they're doing and motivated to inform and protect the public. 

More experienced meteorologists -  the ones that have been at this for decades - are even more important, because they've almost seen it all. And can better than anybody else look at a weather situation and decide either it's not that big a deal or the the people in their area are in real danger. 

The CNN report tells us 30 of 122 weather forecast offices lacking their most experienced officials known as meteorologist-in-charge.  These include major population centers like New York City Cleveland, Houston and Tampa.

"There is not a single manager in place at the hurricane-prone Houston-Galveston forecast office according to a NOAA staff member who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal.

One NWS forecast office, in Goodland, Kansas, is no longer operating 2/7 with about a dozen more likely to shift to non-24 hour operation if action isn't taken this month. These offices includes several in the Plains States and stretch into the Pacific Northwest."

That lack of 24-hour staffing could certainly spread nationwide.  I've got a great example of why this is dangerous. 

VERMONT EXPERIENCE 

On the evening of July 29, 2024, an upper level low pressure system in New England was created some scattered thunderstorms in the humid air hanging over the region. Nobody, including expert meteorologists were that concerned - at first.

But late that night and during the predawn hours of July 30, National Weather Service meteorologists detected some unusual weather patterns associated with the upper low unfolding in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. They could see that this very local area of weather was creating some intensely torrential thunderstorms. And those storms weren't moving away. They were staying put.

So, the National Weather Service in South Burlington quickly issued some strongly worded flash flood warnings for the Northeast Kingdom, calling it a flash flood emergency. That's the most dire weather warning you can get.

 Weather radios and cell phones in the region blared the warnings and people got out of harm's way. 

The resulting flood was exceptionally scary, and caused a lot of destruction. But since people received the warnings, no deaths were reported. 

Now imagine if the National Weather Service office in South Burlington had not been staffed during that overnight shift. There would have been no warnings. People would almost surely have died.

WEATHER EQUIPMENT

In that Vermont flood situation last year, and in countless other examples of dangerous weather, meteorologists rely on Doppler radar and automated weather observations stations to monitor how and where rapidly evolving storms are threatening. 

CNN reports there are more than 90 vacancies among staff responsible for maintaining and repairing those weather observation and radar stations. 

Outages in those systems aren't a problem only in storms. The equipment provides pilots and air traffic  controllers with detailed wind speed and direction data, which determines how aircraft take off and land safely.  

The American Meteorological Society is warning of some serious consequences due to the now crippled National Weather Service.

"Recent reductions in staffing and funding across federal agencies threaten the carefully established balance of the enterprise, placing the entire chain of observations, quality control, model forecasts and decision support for the protection of life and property at risk," the AMA said in a statement. 

"A failure of these systems would be catastrophic, causing, for example, shorter tornado warning lead times, more uncertainty in hurricane landfall intensity and location, and worse forecasts for snowfall amounts - all of which will put the pocketbooks and lives of hard-working Americans at greater risk."

I haven't seen any studies yet to determine how much forecast accuracy and safety has already gone downhill. It's too soon to tell. But I'm hearing more stories of tornadoes that have gone unwarned, storm systems that were either worse or not as bad as predicted, and other miscues.

Incorrect forecasts are the nature of the beast. The best teams of meteorologists can't avoid slightly botching an occasional forecast.

But with the National Weather Service now struggling, mark my words. This will become a worse and worse problem in the coming month.s