National Weather Service Hiring Back Some Meteorologists

Hey, Elon, we told you it was a bad idea

The National Weather Service is now able to
reverse many of the DOGE cuts and will
rehire hundreds of meteorologists 
foolishly let go earlier this year.

Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency slashed their way through federal workers last winter and early spring, leaving critical tasks under-staffed, and actually probably costing more money than we actually saved. 

Now that Musk and Donald Trump saw their famous bromance break up, a few pockets of the federal government are reconsidering these cuts. 

Thankfully, the National Weather Service is one of those agencies. 

Per CNN:

"The National Weather Service has received permission to hire 450 meteorologists, hydrologists, and radar technicians just months after being hit hard by Department of Government Efficiency-related cuts and early retirement incentives. 

The new hiring number includes 126 new positions that were previously approved and will apply to 'front line mission critical'  personnel, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration official told CNN."

This whole thing is so stupid, anyway. Pretty much everyone warned we were losing the people needed to keep Americans safe from storms and other weather hazards. Now, taxpayer dollars are going to train new employees, when just months ago we had experienced meteorologist who were already there and needed no onboarding. 

CNN again: 

"How much time/money is it going to cost to train a bunch of new people when we had already-trained people in place,' asked another NOAA official, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. It is possible that some of the new hires will have been previously trained employees who were let go in the DOGE cuts."

Outcry does work sometimes even in the era of Trump. Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have argued for a public safety exemption for NWS employees, much like law enforcement is exempted from cuts due to their central role in keeping us safe. 

The new hires will ease but not erase critical staffing shortages in National Weather Service offices across the nation.  It's unclear if some of the weather balloon launches that had been suspended due to the shortages will resume.  

Those weather balloon launches are necessary to gauge complex atmospheric factors that greatly influence the severity of tornadoes, flash floods and other dangerous weather. 

 This rehiring, and the renewal of some services the National Weather Service relies upon, sets back, at least for now, the dream of some in the MAGA crowd to privatize weather forecasting in the U.S.

The National Weather Service offers the bulk of its data free to the public, including private weather forecasting companies. 

Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation playbook that the Trump administration seems to be following, had said that the NWS "should fully commercialize its forecasting operations."

In other words, a private entity should take over forecasting for profit. Which always means higher costs and poorer results for us.  And would it lead to a world in which we receive tornado, flash flood and hurricane warnings only if we can afford to pay for them?  Does it mean low income people don't "deserve" life-saving warnings?

I'm not sure, but that seems to be the idea.

For now, we're safe from that dystopian idea. 

Meanwhile, it will take months to rehire the National Weather Service meteorologists. Hurricane season is now in full swing. Dangerous flash floods, wildfires, heat waves and other hazards continue to affect large parts of the nation. 

We've so far been lucky that the National Weather Service staff shortages haven't endangered public safety very much.  Let's hope that continues until everybody's is rehired, and beyond. 

More Bad News, And A Glimmers Of Good News, Regarding Foolish Trump NOAA Job Cutbacks

Bad consequences are starting to emerge
from the Trump administration's firing
of hundreds of NOAA employees.

The Trump administration's destruction of NOAA and the National Weather Service, along with so many other necessary federal entities, continues apace.  

Obviously, we'll focus on NOAA and other weather and climate entities here, since that's the subject of this here blog thingy, so we'll give whatever updates we can.

I'm saying "whatever updates we can," because everything the Trump administration is doing is chaotic, on again, off again, just going along with the whims of the moment. 

Kind of like a regular weather forecast, what will happen next with Trump and Elon Musk and NOAA and NWS is subject to change. But of course more unpredictable than the weather. 

Speaking of which, I have more evidence that the weather itself will get more unpredictable, thanks to some emerging practical effects of the government slashing. 

The National Weather Service offices in Albany, New York and Gray, Maine this past week announced they are suspending some weather balloon launches due to lack of staff. 

Usually, the National Weather Service launches weather balloons twice a day from 100 sites. These balloon launches take detailed weather measurements through multiple layers of the atmosphere. This data is fed into the computer models that guide weather forecasts.

The fewer balloon launches, the less data goes in, so the accuracy of the computer forecasts goes downhill. 

Meteorologist Mallory Brooke, writing on Facebook, explained it this way. 

"Weather balloon launches are critical in understanding what's happening in the atmosphere. Weather isn't created on the ground, it's above our heads! These cuts will have huge implications on forecasting, data accuracy, reliability, and ultimately knowledge of what's coming our way. AI *cannot*  replace this --- this is the core of how our computer models are initialized and run. 

It's like trying to bake a cake but you're going to guess what temperatures to set the oven at. Doesn't usually work out well. These are sad days for the science community as a whole."

Balloon launches were previously canceled up in Alaska, which is bad because there's already a dearth of data from the far north, which is often a weakness in computer models, This will just make it worse. 

MORE FIRINGS CONFUSION/FEARS

There's been conflicting reports of whether some NOAA employees that were fired under Elon Musk's DOGE hatchet firings were reinstated or not.

An unknown number of some probationary employees -  individuals who have worked for their federal agency for less than year - have been reinstated. For instance, three meteorologists let go from the Boise, Idaho National Weather Service office reportedly have their jobs back. 

Also, the building housing the National Weather Center in Norman, Oklahoma appears to be off the closing list, at least for now. The center is a hub for weather research, forecasting and supercomputers that house crucial computer model data. 

Meanwhile, there are reports that more NOAA firings are in the offing. 

Details are emerging about the kind of forecasting and disaster services and activities going away because of the cutbacks

Hurricane Hunters

Included in the chaotic firings appears to be a group of hurricane researchers, two hurricane hunter flight directors and an engineer. 

The hurricane hunter cutbacks are concerning to say the least. These are the seemingly crazy people who fly planes into hurricanes. Their work is invaluable. The dense data the collect from flying into these storms are critical in helping forecast where the storm is going and how strong it will get.

As we learned from Hurricane Helene and Milton last year, and from countless other hurricanes, knowing as precisely as possible where they will hit and at what intensity is essential for getting people out of harm's way, stacking resources in advance where you will need them, and accurately warning the public about what's to come. 

The cutbacks in hurricane experts threatens to diminish the accuracy of the hurricane forecasts. Even if you don't care about human life, and just care about financial responsibility. these firings do not make sense. 

Inaccurate forecasts mean that coming up, people who should have been warned to get out of the way weren't, and people who were warned of an impending hurricane and fled would do so unnecessarily, as the storm went off in a different direction, due to bad forecasting. 

Fired federal hurricane researchers had also been working on improving forecasting models.  So better forecast accuracy is once again out the window. 

I guess Elon Musk is rich enough to avoid danger from hurricanes. The little people who would bear the brunt of these storms don't really matter, do they?

FEMA AND WILDFIRES

It's already been a busy year for wildfires, with that mega firestorm in Los Angeles in January. Plus other wildfires in Texas, South Carolina, North Carolina, South Dakota, North Dakota, New York and other states already. 

You'd want well-trained crews to fight these fires. But that's not on the Trump agenda either, apparently. 

The National Fire Academy, the nations pre-eminent federal fire training center, has canceled its wildfire training courses as amid what it announced was the "process of evaluating agency programs and spending alignment with Administration priorities," the Associated Press reported.

In other words, battling wildfires and saving lives and property is not a Trump administration priority. Good to know. 

Wildfire training was set to begin next week.  People already had their plane tickets ready to go to this thing.  Maybe we can get Donald Trump and Elon Musk to rake the forests so that we won't have any wildfires?

I dunno. 

Meteorologist Fired For Instagram Blast At Elon Musk: What It Means For Other Meteorologists

Sam Kuffel a Milwaukee television meteorologist, was
fired after she posted on social media criticisms of
Elon Musk after he made gestures that many 
believed to be Nazi salutes. 

A television meteorologist named Sam Kuffel was fired recently from a Wisconsin television station for blasting Elon Musk's gesture during President Trump's inauguration. 

The meteorologists, who had worked at WDJT CBS58 in Milwaukee for more than five years, was canned not long after her rather strident posts. 

I know this is a weather and climate blog, and the only relation to these topics is the fact that a meteorologist was involved, but it's an important topic. So I ought to cover it. 

More importantly, what is the duty of on-air meteorologists to report facts that contradict the Trump administration?   With Trump's climate denial, it's more important than ever for meteorologists to offer true but not sensationalized information on climate change.  Should meteorologists speak up if the Trump administration blunts the expertise and truthfulness from the National Weather Service? How far should meteorologist go to speak truth to power?

Unfortunately, Kuffel, likely unwittingly, chose a not-so-important hill to die on. Sure, Nazi salutes are beyond horrible, and they need to be called out. But we face years of climate denial, anti-science gaslighting that needs to be combated full-throatedly. 

As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, Kuffel posted a picture of Musk doing his thing and wrote "Dude Nazi saluted twice. TWICE. During the inauguration." You (expletive) with this and this man, I don't (expletive) with you. Full stop."

She then posted a GIF from "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" with a caption. "Screw that old (expletive). He's a Nazi."

Her posts caught the attention of conservative activists, as these things do.  Radio host Dan O'Donnell accused Kuffel of "spreading the lie that Elon Musk was giving a Nazi salute."

To me, it sure looked like a Nazi salute, though Musk's defender said it was just an awkward gesture, not intended to support Nazis. I would have liked a statement from Musk explaining what happened, but he's not one to do that. 

For her part, Kuffel said she "never intended to harm anyone" with those social media posts. "I was just voicing my personal opinion on a private social media account that was not accessible to the general public."

There's actually more moving parts here than you'd think.   Many news organizations have codes of conduct when it comes to social media.  When I worked at the Burlington Free Press until 2013, I already had active social media accounts.

I had to be careful what I posted so as not to make my political opinions known. It was part of our code of conduct, something many news organizations have.  Given the need to not appear biased, journalists need to keep their political opinions close to their chests, even when they're not on the clock. 

"People who aren't bound by journalist codes of ethics can give any opinion they want, and it doesn't have to be nuanced, but it's an opinion....If you're related to a media organization, you have a deeper responsibility to show your math," said Jill Geisler, the Bill Planet Chair in Leadership and Media Integrity and Loyola University Chicago told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel .

It's unclear whether CBS58 had a code of conduct, as it's not displayed on its website. For transparency's sake, many news organizations publish their conduct codes online.

This gets into First Amendment issues, too.  Yes, an employer can fire you for your actions, even if you were not at work when you did them. 

But Musk is now at least nominally part of the federal government. The First Amendment guarantees the right of free speech free of government suppression.  Neither Musk nor anybody in the Trump administration ordered the television station to fire Kuffel.

However, given the current political climate, did the station feel compelled to can the meteorologist, to protect itself from whatever repercussions they might receive from Trump's minions? 

The bottom line is on air meteorologists have more responsibility than ever to tell the truth about everything, even if it touches on politics.

I hear people say meteorologists should exclusively stick to the weather forecast. Just tell us if we need to bring an umbrella today.   But partly sunny with a chance of showers is only part of their job. The meteorologists on your local television stations are also journalists. 

Most of them, I trust, have more than enough integrity to give us the science and climate news with the best information available. 

The Kuffle firing over Musk's likely Nazi salute probably is just a sideshow that has already exhausted its life in today's rapid fire news cycle. 

But it's a signal to us all.  Meteorologists have a responsibility to tell us the truth. And the public has the right to demand it. 

 

  

UPDATE: Among Many Potential Casualties Of Musk/Trump Shutdown Effort Is Critical Disaster Aid

House Speaker Mike Johnson worked out a deal to prevent
the government from shutting down, but it appears his 
overlords Elon Musk and Donald Trump don't approve.
Which means the government has a high chance of 
shutting down, and badly needed FEMA disaster
relief won't go to victims who have 
already been waiting a long time for help. 

 So, President Musk, I mean, President-elect Trump don't like the budget deal that would prevent a government shutdown, so these kings of chaos want to make a mess.  

They're doing a good job of it. 

Sure, the negotiated deal between Republican and Democratic house members is a bit o a cumbersome mess.

The whole effort by Musk to shut everything down, though, seems designed solely to throw a monkey wrench into the workings of government by any means necessary, and this is just the opening salvo of the chaos that we will endure for the next four years. 

This being a weather and climate blog, I'll ignore for now most of the zillions of things that will go wrong if there is a government shutdown.

But part of the deal that Musk and Trump and the MAGA crowd don't like is the more than $100 million in badly needed FEMA relief money from the weather and climate disasters we've had in the past year. Those included Hurricanes Helene and Milton, and the some of the flood disasters here in Vermont.

Per CBS News:

The now-threatened funding "included $110.4 billion in disaster aid:  $29 billion for FEMA's disaster relief fund; $8 billion for federal highways and roads, $12 billion for the Community Development Block grants and disaster relief; and $3.2 for Tribal Assistance grants. It also replenishes the Small Business Administration's disaster loan program with $2.2 billion. The program was exhausted in the aftermath of Hurricanes Milton and Helene earlier this year."

Vermont's Congressional delegation say they are ready to vote for the continuing resolution if it includes  the disaster aid. "I will not abandon Vermonts. I will not abandon those around the country impacted by flooding, wildfires, hurricanes and other extreme weather. I will not vote for a continuing resolution without comprehensive disaster aid," Sen. Peter Welch, D-VT said via a posting on Threads. 

Bottom line: Those of you who need help from the federal government after enduring climate and weather disasters are on their own, at least if shadow president Elon Musk, Trump and his minions have their way. Which seems a near certainty.

We'll see whether a deal is reached by Friday, but I'm not holding my breath.  

Reign Of Terror Against Climate Scientists Has Begun

Helping set the tone for the incoming Trump administration,
he recently busied himself helping to create an atmosphere
of threats to federal employees working on
climate change issues. 

As I sort of expected, it looks like the purging has already begun. 

The big threat from the Trump administration is they wouldn't just drum out government workers who they think contradict their odd agenda. 

Some of his minions have threatened to jail these supposed opponents. Plus, the MAGA mob is always at the ready. It's already starting, more than a month Trump actually takes office.   

Per CNN:

"Last week, in the midst of the flurry of his daily missives, Musk reposted two X posts that revealed the names and titles of people holding four relatively obscure climate-related government positions. Each post had been viewed tens of millions of times, and the individuals named have bene subjected to a barrage of negative attention. At least one of the four women named has deleted her social media accounts."

It's a tried and true Trump trick, perpetrated by Trump's newish tech buddy Elon Musk.  Take a relatively low level employee of some federal agency they don't like, dox them so all the Trump cult minions will go out and terrorize them. 

 This move shuts up all the other employees, and likely forces them to quit. It also makes everybody else who could be targets also lay low and then quit, thereby ridding the government of anyone whose expertise or sense of reality clashes with their own carefully constructed (fake) world. 

They target relatively low level employees, not their bosses, because these employees are relatively powerless.  

CNN explains it better:

"Several current federal employees told CNN they're afraid their lives will be forever changed - including physically threatened - as Musk makes behind-the scenes-bureaucrats into personal targets, Others told CNN that the threat of being in Musk's crosshairs might even drive them from their jobs entirely - achieving Musk's smaller government goals without so much as a proper review. 

'These tactics are aimed at sowing terror and fear at federal employees,' said Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 800,000 of the 2.3 million civilian federal employees. 'It's intended to make them fearful they will become afraid to speak up."

Others have previous had this happen, and speak from experience: Per CNN:

"'It's his way of intimidating people to either quit or also send a signal to all the other agencies that 'your next; said Mary 'Missy Cummings, an engineering and computer science professor at George Mason University, who drew Musk's ire because of her criticisms of Tesla when she was at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration."

 Of course, all this effort to purge "unwanted" federal employees is unfair labor practice writ large, not to mention a possible violation of First Amendment free speech rights of employees.

Or maybe not, because Trump is using Musk, or Musk is using himself to be far too cute. 

Musk is technically not the federal government. Plus, he can argue all he's doing is offering his free speech opinion on his social media platform X that these employees are an example of government waste.  He can also say he didn't post the doxxing of those federal employees. He was just "reposting" something that somebody else produced.

Never mind that he has the fame and following to take an obscure social media post that nobody was paying attention to, and make it into a Big Deal like this became. 

That way he and Trump can seek to avoid responsibility for the "private citizens" (the Trump cult) that are terrorizing these employees through threats and possibly worse. 

Musk is likely seeing his role with Trump as an investment opportunity. He spend $250 million on helping get Trump elected, according to federal campaign finance filings, and now he probably wants to recoup that investment. 

Which is why he's so helpful with Trump's authoritarian moves.

We're going to keep going through this with lots of people in the Trump administration. It won't be limited to just climate scientists, of course, but they will continue to be a target.  So brace yourselves.