Vermont weather geek's hodgepodge of weather and climate news and opinion. Often Vermont focused, but taking a national and global approach, with sometimes an appropriate dash of fun, outrage, cynicism and compassion.
Items scattered after yesterday's tornado in Woodstock, Vermont. Two tornadoes touched down in the state Thursday.
The National Weather Service in South Burlington broke some news this afternoon: There were actually two tornadoes in Vermont Thursday.
We already knew about the one that hit the western part of Woodstock, Vermont. But it turns out another tornado hit an area near and along York Hill Road in the Addison County town of Lincoln.
The Addison County tornado doesn't come as a complete surprise. Meteorologists tracked a rotating thunderstorm that felled trees in the Middlebury are, though those winds are not believed to be tornadic. The rotation seemed to intensity near Bristol which is very close to Lincoln, so it's not entirely surprising there was a tornado there.
WOODSTOCK
The tornado in Woodstock was a high end EF-1 tornado with top winds of 100 mph, according to the National Weather Service office in South Burlington. I traveled 1.34 miles along Route 4, mostly in the valley. It had a maximum width of 550 yards and was on the ground for just three minutes.
As we've seen in photographs and video, the tornado felled or snapped a large number of trees and caused roof damage and damage to solar panels.
LINCOLN
The Lincoln tornadowas actually a little stronger than the one in Woodstock with top winds of 105 mph. Again, that's a high-end EF-1 tornado
But the Lincoln tornado had a much shorter path and a shorter life. It only traveled 0.31 miles and had a path 200 yards wide. This tornado blew through an area of forest before sputtering out in a ravine.
I suppose it's possible other tornadoes touched down in Vermont Thursday but I'm not aware of any investigations or areas that seem like they were obviously hit by a twister. There was a lot of wind damage, especially in southeast Vermont.
We know it's unusual to have a tornado in Vermont. It's really odd to have two on the same day, or even the same year. There wasanother tornado in Williamstown on April 16, so we're up to the three in a year,
That doesn't break any records for the most Vermont twisters in a single year.
The year 1962 seems to be the biggest twister year in Vermont. Three tornadoes touched down across northern Vermont on May 20 that year.
Two unusual morning tornadoes hit Windsor County on July 9, 1962. more tornadoes touched down on July 9, 1962. One of them traveled 16 miles between Chester and Weathersfield, according to the Vermont Weather Book. Another traveled five miles near Springfield, Vermont, then it crossed into New Hampshire and traveled three more miles.
That said, there is a tendency fortornadoes to be moving east and north out of the Great Plains tornado alley, likely due to climate change. The Northeast has seen an increased number of twisters in recent years and Vermont might be seeing a piece of that.
Of course, another factor is that some Vermont tornadoes in the past might have been missed. Everybody has smart phones. Everybody is on social media. New of weird storm damage spreads fast nowadays. Some of those reports result in investigations and confirmed tornadoes.
The National Weather Service will likely release a much more detailed analysis of the tornadoes and the other instances of severe weather Vermont saw on Thursday. That analysis should be out within a few weeks.
Some of our plants are in the living room window and some tropical plants went into dormancy in a spare bedroom in our St. Albans, Vermont house. We're waiting for the threat of frost to be over before bringing them outdoors for the summer. We're hoping the frost threat ends within another week or so, fingers crossed.
I'm reluctant to release our tropical plants like the orange tree and the hibiscus from their winter prison in our small, but somewhat sunny spare bedroom.
We've had some nice warm days that they would have enjoyed outdoors on the deck. But this cool weather pattern we're stuck in has us worried about frost. Which, as Captain Obvious would say, is bad for tropical plants.
So far, clouds and wind have kept overnight temperatures above freezing, and we're hoping that continues. But, we have the National Weather Service to rescue us from tragic hibiscus deaths if we choose to bring the plants outdoors in the coming days.
They're always good with the frost alerts. There's also a schedule for the spring frost and freeze advisories.
The National Weather Service won't issue frost or freeze advisories until thegrowing seasonstarts in a given spot. The growing season is defined as the period between the average date of the last spring freeze and the average date of the first fall freeze.
Frost and freeze advisories and warnings started on May 1 in the Champlain Valley on nights when conditions warrant. In most of the rest of Vermont, the National Weather Service won''t start with those advisories until May 11. In the Northeast Kingdom, you wouldn't hear a frost or freeze alert until May 21 and after.
That explains why you might see a frost advisory in early May for the Champlain Valley, but no freeze alerts for the rest of Vermont, even though it's colder there.
In those areas away from the Champlain Valley, National Weather Service forecasts until May 11 will mention frosts if some is expected, but won't actually issue a frost advisory or warning until that growing season starts.
We will be subject to a frost risk for awhile yet. Hard freezes have hit Burlington as late as May 31, and light frosts have historic hit in early June on a few occasions. In the Northeast Kingdom, there's been frost every month of the year. Though recent summers up that way have been frost-free.
ACTUAL FROSTS?
We're keeping our eyes out for frosts as it is cooler than normal for this time of year. Any night over the next several days in which skies clear and winds go calm gives us a risk of frosts.
That might be tonight, but the Champlain Valley might be a couple degrees too warm for frost. We'll get updates this afternoon. If temperatures forecasts are adjusted downward, we'll get a frost advisory for the Champlain Valley, but for now, we're in the clear.
Forecasts do mention frosts for the rest of the state, so if you are anywhere outside the Champlain Valley, sensitive plants should come indoors tonight.
After a brief, sort of warmup this weekend, I think the risk of frost might come back for the first half of next week. Again, depending on how cloudy and breezy the nights are. On the bright side, I'm not seeing any signs of a really hard freeze. Just nights that get dangerously close to the freezing mark.k
Remember, you can get frost even if temperatures are in the mid-30s. We measure temperatures about five feet off the ground. It's amazing how much colder it can be on still nights down near your feet.
We don't want to take our tropical plants outdoors until we're reasonable sure no more frosts are coming. Those plants and the soil-filled, large pots they are in are heavy! We're too old to move them back and forth every night.
There are signs that we might shift to a warmer weather pattern around May 18 or so. Then I can finally free Margaret (our orange tree) and Hector the hibiscus and the other plants out to the freedom of our outdoor deck, where they are happiest. And I am, too.
One of the unexpectedly large and deadly tornadoes that struck southern Michigan on March 6. Political leaders are calling for investigations as to whether Trump cuts to the National Weather Service are causing forecast inaccuracies.
Michigan Gov Gretchen Whitmer's is asking whether federal budget cutbacks at the National Weather Service contributed to making this month's deadly tornadoes in the state a dangerous surprise.
No tornado watch had been issued in Michigan before the storms, though tornado warnings were issued when radar images detected rotation and witnesses reported tornadoes forming.
This, from Whitmer's office:
"The National Weather Service exists to monitor conditions and inform Americans of severe weather in their communities. The fact that the (National Weather)Service did not issue a tornado watch is troubling, especially with the loss of life in Michigan," Witmer spokeswoman Stacey LaRouche said in a statement.
That statement continues:
"While tornadoes can be hard to predict, the federal government should investigate whether the failure to use a watch was related to federal cuts."
Also, Michigan U.S. Senators Gary Peters and Elissa Slotkin also sent letters to the National Weather Service offices in Marquette, Gaylord, Grand Rapids, Detroit and northern Indiana asking whether lack of staffing or resources could have affected whether a tornado watch was issued.
While it's absolutely possible budget and staff cuts have hindered the National Weather Service's forecasting prowess, there was also a pecific reason why a watch was not issued.
This was a unique situation. The Nation Weather Service'sStorm Prediction Center did not issue a tornado watch because the atmospheric setup suggested only the risk of isolated, likely weak and brief tornadoes. That's not normally enough to issue a tornado watch.
A tornado watch is usually issued as a heads up for a large area that widespread, severe storms are likely to occur, notedCBS Detroit chief meteorologist Ahmed J. Bajjey. A watch means people should pay attention and be ready to take shelter if need be.
And it turns out there was just isolated activity, which followed the "rules" on not issuing a tornado watch. This one was different, though. Only one supercell thunderstorm produced the series of four tornadoes that spread death and destructionacross southern Michigan on March 6.
The National Weather Service did issue tornado warnings when it became apparent the twisters were forming. A tornado warning means people should take shelter immediately.
One good question is did forecaster miss clues ahead of time that southern Michigan would fall victim to intense, long-lasting tornadoes? It's probably worth investigating, not to shame the meteorologists involved, but to learn how to better forecast in scenarios similar to what Michigan endure on March 6,
It's been a year since sharp and unpredictable Trump administration cuts to the National Weather Service and its parent organization NOAA began.
There's reason to believe the system is straining.
ANOTHER TORNADO FORECAST
While we're at it, we should look at another questionable tornado forecast. This was on Monday, when NOAA gave a moderate risk - the second highest of five alert levels - of tornadoes in the Mid-Atlantic states. Some of the tornadoes were forecast to be possibly strong.
We did see a few hundred reports of wind damage up and down the East Coast Monday, so part of the forecast came true. But there were hardly any tornadoes, and no strong ones. That's great news, of course.
But the dire alerts that went out on Sunday that the next day would be a frightening scene of violent tornadoes frightened the public, in this case unnecessarily.
In this case, forecasters didn't expect some early thunderstorms on the Carolina coast Monday morning that stole energy from the atmosphere in the mid-Atlantic states. The winds in the atmosphere also didn't turn out to be quite as conducive to tornadoes as first thought.
Updated computer model runs Sunday evening began to back away from the idea of strong tornadoes and wind gusts over 75 mph. But by then the message had gotten out of the tornado risk. It was too late for the public to notice these first signs that the tornado risk was lowering.
If the so-calledDOGE cutbacks at NOAAhad any negative effect on the forecast it would have likely come in one of two ways: One, is National Weather Service offices were so short staffed that meteorologists didn't have the opportunity to note subtle signs that the tornado outbreak was not to be.
That is the more unlikely of the two scenarios. A more plausible explanation is that there are now too few balloon launches that capture the meteorological intricacies of the atmosphere. With not as much data being collected by the weather balloons, the computer generated forecasts might not be as accurate. This is another issue that deserves a lot more scrutiny.
I don't know whetherDOGE is to blame for the botched tornado forecast. But if the short-sighted Trump administration cutbacks are to blame, I fear the next time, the National Weather Service won't be able to forecast and anticipate a deadly tornado outbreak or other weather disaster.
Meteorology is a complex science. So complex that weather forecasts will be wrong from time to time, no matter how fully staffed a particular National Weather Service office is.
Michigan's governor and the state's two U.S. Senators will probably learn that the March 6 tornado forecasting didn't fall short. Many of us first worried a year ago when the DOGE cuts were first happening that they wouldthreaten the lives of Americans.
I'm ready for a full analysis of whether that has been the case.
Henry the Weather Dog makes his way down his St. Albans, Vermont driveway, flanked by big snowbanks. Snowfall hasn't been that much above normal, but consistent cold weather has kept snow on the ground This February was coldest since 2015.
The data is in - at least some of it - and as I'm sure you noticed, Vermont experienced its coldest February in over a decade.
For the record, the average February temperature in Burlington was 19.5 degrees, or 3.4 degrees colder than average. The last time we had a colder month than this was in January, 2022. The last time we had a colder February was in 2015, but that one was reallycold. With an average temperature of 7.6 degrees, February, 2015 was the third coldest on record.
This February wasn't particularly cold by historical standards. By my reckoning, it was the 56th coldest out of the past 139 years in Burlington.
It just seemed a lot colder because Februaries since 2016 ranged from kinda mild to incredibly warm for the season. Three of the top five warmest Februaries in Burlington came after 2015.
In Burlington, it got to zero or below on eight occasions, again the most since 2015. That month had 17 such cold mornings. It appears the driving force behind February's chill was overnight lows.
Burlington's average overnight low in February was 5.1 degrees below the "new normal," which is the mean of data from 1990 to 2020. Remember, those years had already been affected by climate change. Historically, Burlington was colder.
February was the fourth consecutive cooler than the 1990-2020 average, as measured in2 Burlington. That's the first time since 2018-19 that has happened. There were actually nine consecutive months that were at least nominally cooler than normal from October, 2018 through June, 2019.
This was also the first year since 2019 that Lake Champlain had entirely frozen over.
DATA ISSUES
A bit of a whine here: There is a LOT of missing data in the National Weather Service February climate summaries for various cities in Vermont. I was able to piece together complete data for Burlington and St. Johnsbury using daily data in February I found from other areas of the NWS web site.
But I was unable to find complete data for much of the rest of Vermont, making it almost impossible to detect trends in this February's weather across the state.
I put in an inquiry today to the National Weather Service asking whether this data will be recovered and added to the incomplete monthly summaries now on the NWS website.
I don't expect them to answer on a Sunday, so I'll keep you posted as to what's up with this.
The missing data might be related to some problems with National Weather Service automated data transfers. One question I asked in my inquiry is whether this is all related to those awful DOGE cutbacksat the National Weather Service. I honestly have no idea if the data issue is related to the cutbacks or not, so I'll reserve judgement.
I noticed the same problem with databack in August. I looked at the August data today, and it appears almost all the missing data from that month has been added back in. August data is definitely more complete now.
I'm hoping the February data gets reviewed and the missing data is restored as it was in August. It is Sunday, so maybe they don't have the staff to deal with this issue until the work week.
This isn't any kind of slap at the meteorologists at the National Weather Service in South Burlington. They do incredible work. I just worry that they, and personnel at all the other meteorologists nationwide, no longer have all the resources they should have.
MORE FEBRUARY INFO
Precipitation in Burlington amounted to an even inch, which is 0.77 inches below normal. I was able to look back 144 years and it turns out this February was the 30th driest on record. Other weather stations in Vermont appear to have been on the dry side as well. But again, the missing data makes it a little hard to truly assess that.
Once again, Vermont tended to sit out dramatic weather events that were hitting other parts of the United States. In Burlington, February 20 was both the wettest and snowiest day of the month with 5.7 inches of snow which melted down to just a hair under a half inch. As you can see, those figures don't exactly tell the tale of a big storm. It was just a routine snowfall.
The lack of thaws this winter has allowed snow to accumulate pretty well, despite snowfall that has not been far from average, except in the mountains, which have had a good snow season.
Most towns in Vermonthad at least a foot of snow on the ground on the last day of February. Several places had two feet or more. That kind of snow cover isn't anywhere close to record-breaking, but it's pretty good. Especially for places that need moisture because of the lingering effects of last year's drought.
In Burlington, through yesterday, there has been snow on the ground for 83 days, the most days like that in at least 22 years.
MARCH OUTLOOK
March is always a wildcard and this year is no exception. We're starting off bitterly cold, like mid-winter, but temperatures will go above normal later this week. We don't yet know how far above normal readings will get or how long the warmish weather will last.
March has the most variable weather of any month. Temperatures during March in Burlington have been as low as 24 below and as high as 84 above. More often than not, we get a March like 2017. The first day of that month was springlike, with a record high of 63 degrees. By the March 14, 2017, the "Pi Day Blizzard"hit. That one is still the second deepest snowstorm on record in Burlington, with 30.4 inches.
So yeah, don't be surprised if the weather surprised you this month.
The forecast from NOAA has Vermont leaning toward a warmer than average March, but it's not a slam dunk. NOAA thinks precipitation in the Green Mountain State during March will be near to perhaps edging a bit above normal.
We will of course, see whether that forecast was accurate in about a month. If we can get the data.
Destruction in western Alaska due to the severe storm that hit over the weekend. Forecasting for the storm appears to be substandard because of cutbacks in funding and staffing for the National Weather Service
"Weather balloon, which are typically launched twice a day, provide crucial information on wind speed and direction, air temperature, humidity, and other measurements. Balloon data is fed directly into sophisticated models used to predict the weather.
However, there were few, if any, balloons to take measurements of what the weather was doing as the remains of Typhoon Halong approached Alaska late last week."
Likely because of the lack of the balloon data, computer models had the storm striking the area around the Bering Strait, the point where Alaska and Russia are the closest to each other.
Instead, the storm hit struck coastal southwest Alaska, sending deadly storm surges into communities like Kwigillingok and Kipnuk and other remote towns. Houses floated away, some with people inside. Rescuers were able to retrieve at least two dozen people. However, one person is confirmed dead and two are missing.
National Weather Service forecasts in Alaska did issue many warnings for the area that was hit hardest boy the storm, but they did so without the help of accurate model projects made days in advance.
That might have meant that warnings that should have gone out sooner didn't.
"Unlike Merkok, which was very well forecast by the global models, this one's final track and intensity weren't clear until the storm was within 36 hours of crossing into Alaska's waters. That's too late for evacuations in many places."
The area hit by the storm is remote, so it's not easy to deal with an extreme storm. It's not like the Lower 48, where people can evacuate to a nearby school, municipal building or hotel when severe weather looms. In Alaska, you need more time to prepare.
The Alaska Beacon also tells us:"There have not been any upper air weather balloon observations at Saint Paul Island in the Bering Sea since late August or at Kotzebue since February. Bethel and Cold Bay are limited to one per day instead of two. At Nome, there were no weather balloons for two full days as the storm."
Meteorologists are still trying to assess to what extent the lack of balloon launches had on forecast accuracy.
"'Not having balloons didn't help,' the forecast, said a NOAA official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, although forecasts for Alaska also really on data from Asia as storms move from that region into North America."
All the major computer models had errors in the projected path of the storm, though it's hard to tease out how much of that error was due to the lack of balloon launches and their data, and how much might have been from other factors.
The aftermath of the storm is more difficult in remote areas like the west coast of Africa. There's no Home Depot right around the corner to buy replacement roofing, windows and flooring. For those whose houses were destroyed, there's nowhere to go.
Hundreds of people have been displaced.The Alaska Beacon says residents are face with an impossible decision: They could go to come place like Anchorage for the winter and return next summer to rebuild. But cities are expensive.
However, there's no housing in the remote coastline of Alaska to move into. All disasters are incredibly difficult for the victims. In Alaska, it's even more so.
Screen grab from a video of the EF-5 tornado in Enderlin, North Dakota. The tornado happened at night, and when this image was taken, it was illuminated by lightning.
A tornado that struck near Grand Forks, North Dakota has received an EF-5 rating, the most powerful kind of tornado, and the first such twister to hit the U.S. since 2013, the National Weather Service said Monday.
The tornado actually hit back on June 20 in Enderlin, North Dakota with estimated winds of 210 mph. It killed, three people, stayed on the ground for a little more than 12 miles and was about a mile wide at one point.
National Weather Service meteorologists usually visit the damage path of a tornado within a day or so of it occurring to start assessing the strength of the storm. It often takes days or weeks of analysis to come up with a rating for a tornado. This one took longer to analyze because the damage it caused on the train was unusual,the Associated Press reported.
The tornado also left trees in a river valley with only stubs of large branches or trunks remaining. The bark was torn off the remains of the trees. Other trees were entirely uprooted and moved away from their original spot.
An EF-5 tornado is theworst of the worst. Their winds are 200 mph or more. They're strong enough to shred a well-built home and just leave a bare concrete pad standing. Sometimes the twister will take the concrete pad, or parts of it. An EF-5 tornado can peel bark from any trees left partially standing after the storm. These tornadoes can suck the pavement off of streets, and dig trenches in fields.
It used to be the U.S. would have an average of one each year. Some years have none, a few have a handful.
But until this tornado, there hadn't been an EF-5 since May, 2013 when a twister of that strength trashed Moore, Oklahoma, killing at least two dozen people.
In the North Dakota tornado, a home was entirely swept away and disintegrated, leaving a concrete slab, which would indicate a possible EF-5. But investigators noted that the anchor bolts on the house might have been substandard, so they couldn't use the house to declare an EF-5. It took the damage to the train to seal the designation.
As I wrote in March, part of the reason for the long EF-5 drought might have been the way they were measured.
Before 2007, if a tornado swept a house entirely off its foundation and shredded it, it was considered an EF-5. Starting that year, such damage was designated as having been created by high-end EF-4 tornadoes.
So, that rule change meant that some tornadoes between 2013 and 2025 that might in the past would have been rated EF-5 ended up being rated EF-4. Researchers think thatas many as 13 EF-4 tornadoes since 2008would have been EF-5s had not the change been made.
Despite promises of rehiring, the National Weather Service remains dangerously low on staff. Burnout looms large and that could hurt public safety in the U.S.
As tropical storms and hurricanes whirl, and wildfires threaten, and winter storms loom sooner than you think, the National Weather Service is still struggling with deep staff shortages, as the Washington Post reportedthis weekend.
The stupid staff firings led by the odious Elon Musklast winter and spring, along with resignations and retirements means 600 workers, or about one in every seven, left the National Weather Service.
Adequate staffing at the National Weather Service is at about 4,500 employees. Right now, they're well south of 4,000.
"Some National Weather Service staffers are working double shifts to keep forecasting offices open. Others are operating under a 'buddy system,' in which adjacent offices help monitor severe weather in understaffed regions. Still others are jettisoning services deemed not absolutely necessary, such as making presentations to schoolchildren."
Somehow, National Weather Service storm monitoring and weather forecasting have gone almost without any interruptions.
However, just think if two big weather emergencies happened at once. I don't know whether the NWS would have been able to handle it. Take this week for example,
Hurricane Humberto and soon to be hurricane Imelda have been very close together in the Atlantic Ocean, making forecasting difficult. .But neither storm is a direct threat to the United States, so forecasting for the two tropical systems is being managed OK.
But what if everything was further west. Imagine a scenario in which Hurricane Humberto was about to make landfall in the Carolinas while at the same time Imelda was threatening Houston or New Orleans.
Would the National Weather Service have the bandwidth to manage both crises? Once upon a time, they would. Right now, I'm not so sure.
CURRENT NWS SITUATION
The Trump administration did a reversal earlier this year and granted the National Weather Service an exemption to a government-wide hiring freeze. But the fresh hiring largely hasn't happened yet.
The incoming new NOAA director, Neil Jacobs, has pledged to address the staff shortages, but a U.S. Senate Committee just barely advanced his nomination on September 17.
NOAA staffers, including most everyone at the National Weather Service are working overtime. Their work/life balance is shot to hell. WaPo says managers are picking up forecasting shifts. Some offices are sharing their employees remotely with locations that don't have enough staff. That requires overtime and working weekends.
Even worse, if the government shuts down this week, NWS meteorologists considered essential employees. So they would be working without pay on top of everything else. At least until Congress and Donald Trump finally decide to get their act together.
Good luck with that.
There was a lot of concern this spring and summer that overstretched NWS meteorologists would miss things like rapidly developing tornadoes and flash floods. If that has happened, it's been rare. I haven't come across data showing whether or not forecasts for dangerous weather have degraded under the Trump regime.
Stay tuned for eventual studies and research on that topic.
Here's an example of the potential danger. The National Weather Service office in central Texas was able to issue timely flash flood warnings ahead of and during the epic and deadly July 4 weekend Texas Hill Country flash floods. Those floods still claimed more than 130 lives, despite the warnings.
At the time of the flood, the Austin/San Antonio NWS office which covers the area hit by the flood, was understaffed by six employees. One of the vacant positions at that NWS office was warning coordinator.
The warning coordinator is the one who alerts local officials to danger. In the Texas flood, local officials appear not to have responded adequately to the warnings. Early indications are that was not primarily the fault of the National Weather Service. However, communication between the NWS and local emergency officials is still under investigation,the Texas Standard reports.
Three months after the flood, the Austin/San Antonio NWS office is now seven employees short of fully staffed. The warning coordinator position is still unfilled.
EXHAUSTED STAFF
Meanwhile, the longer the meteorologists are overworked, the more likely the will start to miss things.
That could cost lives.
"They're going to run out of gas," John Sokich, a retired National Weather Service employee told the Washington Post."They're going to start missing things. You can't sustain that level of effort for much longer."
A NOAA spokesperson blandly said that the NWS "remains equipped to meet its mission of protecting American lives and property through timely forecasts and critical decision support services."
Yeah, only because NWS meteorologists are now practically killing themselves accomplishing that mission.
A new National Weather Service job application form now has a Trump "loyalty test" question on it.
Yes, you saw the exact same headline on this here blog thingy the other day, except it concerned FEMA, not the National Weather Service.
But the issue is the same, and maybe in some respects worse.
Let's lay it out:
We got the good news recently that the National Weather Servicewill hire about 450 people, reversing the stupid earlier decisions to drastically cut the NWS work force.
The staff cutbacks left National Weather Service offices severely short-handed, and raised seriously questions as to whether life-saving storm warnings would go out to the public in a timely manner.
There was healthy public pressure for once, even from some Republicans, so the Trump people reluctantly allowed NWS to start hiring again. They're taking applications as we speak.
Sure, qualified applicants need to have a degree and background in meteorology or other related sciences, and prior experience is obviously helpful, as it is with any job.
The National Weather Service meteorologist job application, though, has applicants explaining how they would advance President Donald Trump's agenda if hired.
Here's the specific question that's most problematic:
"How would you help advance the President's Executive Orders and policy priorities in this role? Identify one or two relative Executive Orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired."
Meteorologists outside the NWS and other observers are alarmed by the loyalty test question.
".....some experts said they are alarmed at the prospect that a candidate's ideology could matter for jobs in science.
'The fundamental question is, will this make forecasts any better? That's the job of the weather service,' said Rick Spinrad, who led the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which includes the weather service, under president Joe Biden.
'These people should be hired for their knowledge in meteorology or hydrology or information technology or physics - not civics. Bottom line, I'd rather have a great forecaster who's never read an EO than a policy muck who's taken one meteorology class,; he said, referring to executive orders."
Jeff Masters, a meteorologist at Yale Climate Connection and co-founder of Weather Underground, is also dubious at best at the application question.
"Whether or not you support the President's Executive Orders will not enable a meteorologist to make a better forecast or issue a more timely tornado warning, and should have no place on a job application for the National Weather Service,"Masters said.
What gets tricky in this is weather forecast is intertwined with climate change. Many extreme weather events are now made worse by the world's warming atmosphere.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration denies the existence of climate change. He is trying to shut down clean energy while promoting fossil fuels like oil and natural gas. So if the public or the media has questions for a NWS meteorologist regarding a weather event and whether it had anything to do with climate change, how do they answer, and keep their jobs?
Then there was Sharpiegate, that whole thing in Trump's first term in which NWS meteorologists got in trouble for contradicting Chief Meteorologist Donald Trump on his very wrong prediction that a hurricane would hit Alabama.
Will National Weather Service meteorologists feel pressure to not tell the public something important about the weather if it will displease the Orange God?
It's true this loyalty test job application question is supposedly optional. But if you ran across a job application that really seems to want this info, would you expect to land the job if you didn't answer the question?
Looking through the NWS job application, we also come find this question:
"In this role, how would you use your skills and experience to improve government efficiency and effectiveness? Provide specific examples where you improved processes, reduced costs or improved outcomes."
When there's dangerous weather looming, shouldn't a meteorologist be warning the public, and not worried about how to save money in that moment?
True, any office and workplace can find efficiencies and cost savings, but I worry this sounds like encouraging National Weather Service employees to skimp on complete forecasting.
This isn't just the National Weather Service. Many government agencies that focus on science are now being told to ignore science, and to instead embrace junk policy.
Politicizing science has probably already cost American lives. How many more will it cost?
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.
ElonMusk 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 famousbromance break up, a few pockets of the federal government are reconsidering these cuts.
Thankfully, the National Weather Service is one of those agencies.
"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 warnedwe 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.
"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 launchesthat 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.
Interior of a building housing children at summer camp near the Guadalupe River in central Texas. Note the water reached the top bunks, judging from the mud line the windows..
The death toll from the extreme Texas floods over the Fourth of July weekend kept horrifyingly ballooning upward all day Sunday and last night.
Hope was fading that more survivors will be found. There was a report that two girls had been found alive Sunday, but that report turned out to be false.
We couldn't even squeeze one thankful moment out of this tragedy.
There areplenty in Texas. Including camp counselors who braved rushing water to save a lot of the kids at Camp Mystic, the camp where some children were swept away an killed.
The flash flooding moved a little north on Sunday, hitting communities a little south and west of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.
Flood watches remained in effect Sunday for the Texas Hill Country, as more developing thunderstorms threatened further downpours.
More evidence emerged that the National Weather System was on entirely on top of the developing Texas flood situation Thursday and early Friday.
The flooding started after 1 a.m. Friday and rapidly worsened before dawn, when people are asleep and less likely to hear warnings. Or, given it was dark, they just didn't have the visual cues that something was going very, very wrong.
Between Tuesday and Thursday, the National Weather Service offices in San Antonio and Austin were putting out statements saying there was a flash flood risk Thursday night and Friday.
At 1:18 p.m. Thursday, the National Weather Service issued a flood watch for the the area including Kerr Couty, where the worst of the flooding hit. The watch mentioned the possibility of up to seven inches of rain.
Mountains of debris after the extreme Texas Hill Country flood this weekend.
At 6:10 p.m. Thursday, the National Weather Service released a special discussion - one that is typically noticed by emergency managers.
This NWS statement referenced "concerning trends" indicating flash flooding was on its way and mentioned forecasted rainfall rates exceeding three inches per hour.
At 1:06 a.m. Friday, the National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for Kerr County, and used a tag "considerable" to the wording in the warning.
That should have triggered those automatic alerts that sets your cell phone blaring during emergencies such as life-threatening weather.
The NWS at 2:38 a.m. Friday issued a communication that five inches of rain had already fallen. That was followed up at 3:02 a.m. with a National Weather Service statement saying "a dangerous flash flood emergency is unfolding in south-central Kerr County.
At 4:03 a.m. a flash flood emergency was declared in Kerr County. Near Camp Mystic in Hunt, Texas, where those children were swept away and presumably drowned, the Guadalupe River reached major flood stage of 22 feet, ultimately cresting at 29.45 feet shortly after 4:30 a.m.
National Weather Service offices across the nation, including those serving the flash flood zone, have staff shortages due to mostly Trump administration cutbacks. But crucially, the local National Weather Service office increased staff Thursday night, knowing that dangerous weather was possible.
Normally, under our current regime of NWS staff shortages, two meteorologists would have been on duty that night. However, five meteorologists staffed the office that night and early morning.
GETTING THE MESSAGE
However, either the messaging wasn't adequate enough to convey the serious danger developing, or more likely, people just didn't hear the warnings.
Kerr County, the epicenter of the extreme flooding early Friday, does not have a reliable early warning system, despite the fact the area is highly prone to flash flood.
As NBCDFW.com reports, local officials said they did not expect such an intense downpour, despite the dire flood warning issued in the predawn hours Friday.
"We know we get rains. We know the river rises....But nobody saw this coming," said Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly.
The county had looked into building a flash flood warning system a few years ago. It would have worked somewhat like a tornado warning system, with sirens and other means of alerting the public. But officials blanched at the cost.
We also don't know what went on at the camps where the children were swept away. What are the safety protocols for nights when flash flooding is possible? When does somebody pull the trigger to start an evacuation? Was there a detailed plan to hustle all the kids out of danger as fast as possible? Lots of inquiring minds want to know.
The timing of the flooding was the worst possible, as Texas Tribune tells us. It was the start of a major summer holiday weekend, when camps and RV parks would be fully booked. The more people you have in one area, the longer it takes to get everybody out of harm's way.
The emergency hit before dawn, when pretty much everyone was asleep. A lot of the people in the area were out of town tourists, who were probably unfamiliar with how fast these floods develop. When they did wake up, people were initially probably too groggy to act fast.
By the time the crisis hit, you had to get out of the way with lighting speed. Any hesitation would be fatal.
A video by Gavin Walston shows the flash flood view from the 480 Bridge in Center Point, Texas. In a little over a half hour, the river goes from nothing special flowing more than 20 feet below the bridge, to a debris-filled horror overtaking the bridge. You can hear somebody yelling a Walston to get off the bridge near the end.
Below are two excerpts from the video
Video shows how fast water came up along one river in the flood zone. It went from a placid stream to something akin to a tsunami within an hour. Click on this linkto view, or if you see the image below, click on that:
Same videographer, showing the house that came downstream in the video above.Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that.
Sunday afternoon was supposed to be at least partly sunny in Vermont. But it wasn't. This is the sky over St. Albans, Vermont at around 4:30 p.m. Sunday. National Weather Service meteorologists remain excellent, but are their forecasts suffering from degraded data due to Trump NOAA cutbacks? I'm wondering.
I'm beginning to suspect that weather forecasts are getting less accurate.
Thank you, Trump administration.
I don't have any empirical data to back up this suspicion At least not yet. But my radar is buzzing on this one.
Locally here in Vermont, there's been some forecast misses lately. Sunday was a classic example. After some morning clouds, it was supposed to clear up into a mostly sunny day, with temperatures up near 80.
It didn't happen. For the most part, it stayed cloudy all day. And the clouds kept temperatures lower than expected.
Saturday's forecast was kind of wonky too, with less rain than expected across central and parts of southern Vermont.
Forecast misses happen, they always have. The atmosphere is so complicated, you'd expect that some things are going on up there that we just don't get. We get surprises.
More importantly, I'm not at all disparaging the excellent meteorologists at the National Weather Service office in South Burlington. Or anywhere. They're serving the public as awesomely as they always did.
I have to wonder, though, if the Trump administration cutbacks at NOAa and the National Weather Service are starting to have effects.
"......NOAA has built one of the most robust weather monitoring systems in the world, collecting 6.3 billion observations per day. The NWS then plugs the data from these instruments into computer models to predict the next torrential downpour, cold snap, heat wave or thunderstorm."
That was then, this is now.
NOAA still has a robust data collection system, but it's not as robust as it once was. Staffing is thin, thanks to pre-existing vacancies and especially thehundreds of layoffs under DOGE, that slash and burn of federal agencies that Elon Musk headed up earlier this year.
There'sfewer weather balloon launches, which give critical information as to the nuances of what's going on in the atmosphere. Other programs are cut back as well.
These cutbacks leave us with garbage in, garbage out. If the quality of the data is not quite up to snuff, then there might be missing pieces of the weather picture, so the forecast could be off.
A huge share of the raw data meteorologists need in the United States comes from NOAA/National Weather Service. Your friendly TV meteorologist uses that data for her forecast. I'm not a meteorologist, but I know my way around the National Weather Service and can find information. That's what I use to try to give you a picture of what's going on.
My musings here are just a theory. So far. Like I mentioned, I have not yet seen any rigorous analyses of weather forecasts have degraded.
This past weekend might have been just the usual rough patch that happens from time to time.
It's also not as if all forecasts will be wildly wrong. Most will still be spot on. Even the ones that are off, like Sunday's clouds and Saturday's weird rainfall distribution in Vermont, were still partly on track.
For instance, the National Weather Service had told us in advance Sunday morning would be rather cloudy. It's just the clearing skies hit a few hours later than forecast. It got clear in the evening, not the afternoon.
The Saturday forecast was correct in that heavier rain went through Vermont and lighter amount fell south. It was just the light south amounts were by and large really light.
An expected sunny Sunday that turns rather cloudy is at worst just a minor bummer.
However, I worry that far more dangerous brewing weather will get missed. True, the National Weather Service does its best to go all hands on deck when things look threatening. But the lack of data, the shortage of meteorologists increase the chances that critical clues in a developing weather disaster could easily get overlooked.
Which would cost lives.
These fears about worse forecasts are nothing new. We talked about this as soon as the cutbacks started this past winter. . Now those cutbacks are here, and I believe we're starting to see the effects.
Maybe it already happened. It's been a very busy tornado year in the United States. A few tornadoes either went unwarned or warnings went out long after the twister touched down. This has always happened from time to time. Sometimes, tornadoes managed to "hide" from the best radar images and from the most experienced meteorologists.
Did unwarned tornadoes and severe storms happen more frequently this spring and early summer? have no idea, but it's worth looking into.
If it turns out that weather forecasts are indeed getting inaccurate, and if it leads to unnecessary deaths, the blood is on the hands of those in the Trump administration.
A National Weather Service radar image, I used this one from Fargo, North Dakota because there were no rainstorms to show on the NWS local radar, The NWS radar from the Burlington office will be down most of this week for repairs,
So during this time, you won't be able to see the location and direction of any rain or storms that develop in the area.
You'll have to find alternative weather radar images during that time.
The National Weather Service radar is down because they need to repair the radar dome in Colchester. The radar that services Albany, New York will also be turned off for repairs.
The radar installations look like giant white balls atop a tower.
Strong winds and temperature extremes over time damage some of the panels on these radar structures, so the panels have to be be replaced. Those pieces can crack, or develop leaks, or even fall apart.
Damaged panels interfere with radar's ability to receive and transmit information, according to the National Weather Service.
So the repairs are needed. The radar serving northern and central Vermont and northeastern New York will be down starting today. It should be up and running again sometime Thursday.
While the repairs are happening, showers and thunderstorms are forecast Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday around the area.
A few of the showers and storms could have fairly heavy rain Wednesday. Depending on cloud cover and other factors, we could have a few strong storms and spots of torrential rain Thursday as well.
Given that, let's find those alternative ways to find weather radar to keep an eye on any storms that may or may not be headed your way while the National Weather Service fixes their radar.
Television station WPTZ's radar is quite interactive, which is nice. If you click the "layers" button on the lower right, you have options of seeing what current temperatures, dew point and wind speeds are like, along with rainfall amounts in the past 24 hours and other information.
All of these radar options are good, but I'll be happy to get the National Weather Service radar back. Only because that's the one I'm used to, I guess.
I wouldn't really recommend downloading a weather app onto your phone, as some of them seem a little dubious to me.
Tornado destruction in London, Kentucky over the weekend. Despite Trump administration staff shortages at the National Weather Service, the local NWS office was adequately staffed to provide warnings, but they did have to scramble schedules to make that happen,
The worst tornado in last Thursday and Friday's deadly tornado outbreak was in eastern Kentucky.
Warnings were issued ahead of the tornado, but the the tornado was a worst case scenario.
It was so strong that it was unsurvivable in some of the hardest hit homes. Plus the twister came through around midnight, when many people were sleeping and thus unaware of any warnings.
The bottom line is the deaths were probably virtually unavoidable whether or not warnings were issued or not.
However, tornado warnings do save lives and the fact that the Kentucky communities had a heads up that a twister was coming probably did save lives
The National Weather Service office in Jackson, Kentucky was responsible for monitoring Friday's storms and issuing warnings when danger arose.
That office is among the worst affected by NOAA's staff and resource cuts and shortages, thanks to the Trump administration's desire to cut services that actually help people and funnel the savings to billionaires. So they can buy more yachts or something.
Jackson is one of a growing number of National Weather Service offices that are unable to cover overnight shifts due to the cutbacks. Jackson's NWS office needs 13 meteorologists. It has nine. The Meteorologist in Charge position in Jackson is vacant.
That, understandably has led to speculation that those cutbacks hindered the Jackson office from issuing adequate warnings. In other words, the accusation goes, Trump's cutbacks literally killed people in Laurel County, Kentucky.
These National Weather Service cutbacks may well result in deaths because of a lack of good forecasting and late or inaccurate warnings,
But in this instance, it looks like that wasn't the case. Thanks mostly to scrambling, extra work and creative scheduling at the Jackson National Weather Service office.
"'We saw the risk many days ago. We were already planning how we would staff days in advance,' said Christian Cassell, one of the office's lead meteorologists. By Thursday, the staff had set up a schedule to stagger shifts Friday 'knowing we were looking at nearly a full day of a threat of severe weather,' he said,
'I'm goad to say we were very well staffed for the entirety of the event," Cassell said."
It also helped that the dangerous Kentucky weather was relatively short lived. In lasted from late Thursday night until early Saturday morning. Before and after that, the weather in Bluegrass State was relatively benign. So conditions didn't need close scrutiny.
That the Jackson, Kentucky NWS office was able to stay on top of the storms Friday and issue timely warnings, doesn't absolve the Trump administration from responsibility for future deaths caused by severe weather and an inadequate National Weather Service staff.
Severe storms and tornadoes have been ongoing in different parts of the nation since last Thursday, and are expected to continue today and tomorrow. When resources are stretched thin, a multi-day severe storm event can exhaust staff and lead to mistakes,
The recent tornado outbreak has been hopscotching between different regions of the nation, so any one National Weather Service office has not been exceptionally burdened, despite the difficulties with short staff nationwide.
The real trouble will hit when a bout of dangerous weather lasts in a particular spot for several days. What if the Jackson National Weather Service office had to deal with dangerous weather that lasted, say, five days in a row?
Scrambling to staff an office during one day of severe storms is one thing. But five in a row?
A Doppler radar installation, probably monitoring that severe thunderstorm in the background. These radars are crucial for monitoring severe weather, but a conspiracy group wants to attack and destroy Doppler radar because they are somehow a "weather weapon."
Apparently, the wackos are going after Doppler radar now
As if NOAA and the National Weather Service didn't have enough problems with Trump cutbacks on staff and services that are harming both forecast accuracy and research, there's terrorists now, too.
An anti-government group called Veterans on Patrol have somehow decided that Doppler radar is now somehow a "weather weapon."
Doppler radar installations are those big white balls on top of towers - there's one in Colchester, Vermont for reference - that track precipitation, winds and other features in the atmosphere.
Doppler radar is fantasticfor determining the type of precipitation that's falling in various locations. Also the intensity, which is super handy if you're worried about flooding. It also detects wind patterns, including dangerous ones that might, for example, indicate a tornado is about to form.
The group has thus far not come up with an explanation as to how Doppler radar is a "weather weapon." Veterans on Patrol said the Doppler sites are controlled by the military and are somehow "poisoning our skies."
Responding to media reports on the threats, Veterans on Patrol founder Michael "Lewis Arthur" Meyer said the group is moving forward with plans to target the radars
"'We intend to take as many NexRads offline as possible once our attack simulations have prepared us,' Meyer wrote. He said he had 'full authority' to do so. Meet said the 'attack simulations" would go until June but potentially i not August, without giving details about the operation."
Though there has been no attacks yet, and not much in the way of suspicious activity at the Doppler radar sites, officials are taking no chances.
"Out of a abundance of caution, we are asking all regions to notify their field offices and radar technicians to maintain increased vigilance when at or near radar sites," NOAA's central office warned leadership in a May 12 memo.
National Weather Service staff were told to notify law enforcement of any suspicious or weird behavior.
The threats from Veterans on Patrol come at an already bad time for NOAA and the National Weather Service, as the agency has been battered by Trump administration layoffs, buyouts and steep cutbacks that are crippling its mission.
"'Nobody likes federal employees being demeaned by the administration, but when it escalates to violence or threats of it, it start to become really demoralizing,' said one NWS employee who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press."
This would be an especially bad time for Doppler weather radars to fail, either through mechanical failure or sabotage.As CNN reports, the agency has more than 90 vacancies for the technicians who normally repair them.
A Doppler radar that is offline can make meteorologists miss threatening weather like a developing tornado or flash flood.
Veterans on Patrol is an extremist conspiracy theory group but up until now don't have a big reputation for violence. Like many other similar groups, this one offers itself up as a safe haven for people who are going through a rough time.
Veterans on Patrol serve up a spot in the town of Lake Lure, where they collected and distributed donated supplies, such as bottled water, food and clothing.
So far, so good.
Then Veterans on Patrol began telling storm victims there the government somehow steered Helene into western North Carolina so they could take land and harvest minerals. They also falsely said the Federal Emergency Management Agency was giving most aid to undocumented immigrants, terrorists and criminals.
Enough people in Lake Lure saw through this scam to force Veterans on Patrol to leave.
Somehow, I think there's some other public relations move by this group to target Doppler radar.
Maybe they're stooges. The Trump administration has been dismantling NOAA through repeated staff and resource cutbacks.
The goal might be to degrade NOAA and the National Weather Service enough to "prove" that government agencies are inept, so weather forecasting should go to a private company, thereby enriching a couple billionaires somewhere.
I obviously don't think Trump and Veterans for Patrol are working together. Although come to think of it they are a match made in heaven.
After all, corrupt administrations worldwide rely on useful idiots - people and groups that have swallowed anti-government propaganda no matter how off the wall.
A subset of Trumpers are willing to believe almost anything. Including the idea that Doppler radars are somehow "weather weapons."
The whack jobs feed the energy of the Trump True Believers, which enables the Trumpsters to pretend they have a groundswell of support behind them.
Trump and his minions don't need Veterans for Patrol, but I'm sure they consider them helpful.
To bad the rest of us are both appalled by this Doppler conspiracy and laughing our butts off at the purveyors of this nonsense.
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 reportedthat things are even worse than we thought.
"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.
"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.
"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
