Trump Cuts Tsunami Warning System, Leaving Entire West Coast Vulnerable

The Trump administration is cutting back
warning systems for tsunamis on the West Coast

 Trump administration cutbacks are endangering millions of residents along the West Coast who are prone to tsunamis.

Per NBC News:

"Nine seismic stations in Alaska are set to go dark this month, leaving tsunami forecasters without important data used to determine whether an earthquake will send a destructive wave barreling toward the West Coast."

A federal grant that funded the nine stations lapses last year, and the Trump administration has decided not to renew it. The loss of those stations means determining the magnitude and shape of earthquakes will be delayed. 

Quickly figuring out such data is crucial for timely warnings on whether an earthquake will generate a tsunami, and if so, how big the waves will be, and where and when they are most likely to hit. 

The cynical, paranoid part of my mind guesses Trump figures the West Coast states are all blue, and maybe he figures all those Democrats deserve to be wiped out by a tsunami. 

Earthquakes are common along and south of the Alaskan coast. Depending on the type of quake, tsunamis can spread destruction thousands of miles away. A huge 1964 earthquake centered near Anchorage, Alaska, sent a tsunami into the U.S. West Coast. 

That 1964 tsunami killed 12 people, most of them in Crescent City, California, but one death was recorded as far south as Los Angeles. The tsunami caused $17 million in damage.

This is the latest blow to the United States tsunami warning system, NBC News reports. 

The U.S. has two tsunami warning centers, one in Palmer, Alaska and another in Honolulu. They're operated under the umbrella of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The tsunami centers have been victimized by steep cutbacks and staff shortages under the Trump administration, much like the National Weather Service, which is also under the umbrella of NOAA.

Says NBC:

"Of the 20 full-time positions at the center in Alaska, only 11 are currently filled, according to Tom Fahy, the union legislative director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization. In Hawaii, four of the 16 roles are open." 

Reports are NOAA is trying to hire more employees for those centers. We'll see. 

But the Trump people have  already ditched top talent. NOAA in February laid off Corina Allen, the National Weather Service's tsunami program manager. She's since gotten a job with the Washington State Department of Natural Resources. 

Allen is working to protect the state of Washington and prepare its residents for future tsunamis. If she can't do it for the nation, at least she can do it for Washington State.

The Trump crew, specifically the Trump minion mucky mucks at NOAA, has reduced funding for the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program, which pays for most of states' tsunami risk reduction work. 

Usually the mitigation program gets $6 million a year to operate. This year, it's down to $4 million, NBC News reports. 

Trumpers are also getting rid of ways to warn Alaskans of tsunamis and other deadly hazards. Congress, at Trump's behest, rescinded funding for Public Radio and PBS stations. In much of rural Alaska public radio and public television stations are pretty much the only way for people to receive emergency warnings. 

Time is of the essence with these emergency warnings. When an offshore earthquake threatened parts of Alaska with a tsunami this summer before the cuts, residents heard alerts on public radio and had begun evacuating even before the Alaska Emergency Management Agency contacted officials on the at risk islands.

In this summer's case, the tsunami wasn't particularly big and caused little damage. But people from the Aleutian Islands of Alaska to San Diego, California might not be so lucky next time. 

Thanks to the shortsightedness, to put it politely, that permeates the Trump administration.  

DOGE Cuts Turned Devastating, Deadly Alaska Storm Into A Surprise, Leaving Some Unprepared

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

The horrible storm that caused at least one death and intense destruction in parts of western Alaska was forecasted inaccurately, due to DOGE cuts orchestrated by Elon Musk and the Trump administration, according to a CNN report. 

The bulk of the storm struck an area south of where computer models suggested it would. The models were apparently off because of a lack of good data. 

So-called Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE cutbacks meant some weather balloon launches were scrubbed for lack of funding. 

Per CNN:

"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. 

The Alaska Beacon compared this storm with another ex-typhoon named Merbok in 2022.

"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. 

 CNN continues:

"'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. 

 

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. 

Hurricane Forecasts To Suffer Due To Trump Defense Department Change, Could Endanger Lives

Satellite view of Hurricane Beryl last July.
The Defense Department is taking away
crucial satellite data that would reduce
the accuracy of what until now has
been excellent hurricane forecasting, 

 The U.S. Department of Defense has inexplicably announced it would end providing some  satellite weather data, leaving meteorologists without crucial information about hurricanes that will loom over the Atlantic Ocean and potentially threaten land. 

This could lead to inaccurate forecasts, or less lead time to warn coastal residents threatened by hurricanes. 

Per NPR:

"For more than 40 years, the Defense Department has operated satellites that collect information about conditions in the atmosphere and ocean.

 A group within the Navy, called the Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center, processes the raw data from the satellites, and turns it over to scientists and weather forecasters who use it for a wide range of purposes, including real-tine hurricane forecasting and measuring sea ice in polar regions."

The Department of Defense out of the blue announced last week that they would stop providing that data as of June 30.  After an outcry, they graciously offered to continue to provide the data through the end of July. 

This data is critical for hurricane forecasting, so waiting to end the program at the end of July doesn't help much. That's because hurricane season peaks in August and September. The most frequent, and most ferocious hurricanes tend to occur in those two months. 

This whole mess has left people speculating why the data will stop being available. Again, per NPR:

"'It's not an issue of funding cuts,' says Mark Serreze, the director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, a federally funded research center in Colorado that has lied on the soon-to-be-terminated Defense Department data to track sea ice since 1979. 'There are cybersecurity concerns. That's what we're being told.'"

I'm suspicious, as I usually am with anything involving the Trump administration. 

Information from the Snow and Ice Data Center shows that climate change is reducing the amount of sea ice in the Arctic. The Trump administration is hostile to the facts of climate change.  Perhaps they're trying to block data that contradicts their decidedly non-scientific view. 

NIGHTTIME MONITORING 

The data we'll lose is through using Defense Department satellites to observe storms like hurricanes at night. Visible satellite data is useful during the day. Much less so at night. 

As the Washington Post explains:

"....by observing microwave radiation that emanates from Earth's surface - and the ways it interacts with water - scientists can detect where and how intensely water is distributed. It lets them see where clouds are what the structure of a storm - such as its eyewall and wind patterns - look like."

After losing the Defense Department microwave monitoring, we'll still have some microwave monitoring from a satellite mission jointly operated by the United States and Japan. But those atmospheric scans are infrequent, so we won't have enough real time night data on rapidly evolving hurricanes.

The result will be what is known as "sunrise surprises."  Back before microwave data was available, meteorologists would discover at dawn that a hurricane has abruptly changed strength and direction overnight. In short, these scientists would discover that a hurricane isn't in the spot where it's "supposed" to be, and perhaps it has grown from a nothing burger to a monster. 

That means the public won't have as much lead time to get ready if a hurricane suddenly decides to strengthen and take aim at a coastal city instead of harmlessly curving out to sea as forecasters might have presumed the evening before. 

HURRICANE SURPRISES

This is particularly dangerous if the unexpected shift happens when the hurricane pulls its overnight shenanigans near the coastline. 

Destruction from the Great Long Island/New England
hurricane of 1938, which took the region by surprise.
We don't want to go back to the days when
hurricanes surprised us. 

This whole Defense Department move will be a throwback to the old days when hurricanes took us by surprise. A classic example goes way back to 1938.  

Back in those days, weather forecasting was not nearly as sophisticated as it is today. In September, 1938, meteorologists were aware of a strong hurricane off the southeast U..S. coast. They believed it would head northeast, and remain far enough offshore to not cause harm.

Instead, the 1938 hurricane slammed into Long Island and New England, leaving a trail of devastation that killed at least 690 people and caused $400 million in 1938 dollar damage. (That would be more than $9 billion in 2025 dollars).  

Granted, we have other tools nowadays besides nighttime microwave monitoring that would  help prevent such a tragedy. But still, do we really want to risk surprise hurricanes like this?

These days, climate change is making hurricane monitoring more important than ever, as a warmer atmosphere is altering the behavior of these storms. 

 Per Washington Post:

"Many scientists have said the microwave data is more valuable than ever as more hurricanes are undergoing rapid intensification, in which they transform from tropical storms or low-end hurricanes into major Category 4 or 5 storms within a matter of hours - often just before making landfall."

I guess the Trump administration figures that looming dangerous weather is also none of our business. 

As I noted as recently as Monday, the Trump crew has cut back on NOAA and the National Weather Service so much that forecast offices are severely short staffed, and needed data to make accurate weather forecasts has become increasingly spotty as a result.  Hurricane hunter flights might well be reduced as well due to cutbacks, taking away even more crucial storm data. 

WHAT THE ADMINISTRATION SAYS

The Navy did not return media inquiries regarding this issue.  The Trump administration never explains what they're doing anyway.  Apparently, it's none of our business what our supposed government does. 

WaPo says that NOAA spokeswoman Kim Duster dismissed the microwave data as "a single dataset in a robust suite of hurricane forecasting and modeling tools" that include satellite data (which doesn't work as well at night) and ground based weather stations and buoys (which are very sparse out in the regions where hurricanes develop) and weather balloon data (which are launched less frequently now due to DOGE cutbacks at NOAA).

The hurricane season has just begun.  So far, we've had two, brief, weak tropical storms that were either harmless (Andrea out in the middle of the Atlantic a little over a week ago) and Barry, which caused minor flooding in northeastern Mexico on Sunday).

Much stronger tropical storms and hurricanes are inevitable as we head through the rest of the summer and into the autumn. 

During last year's busy hurricane season, I was stunned by how accurate the forecasts were for those powerful storms, and how well warned people in the hurricane paths were. Even so, these hurricanes  managed to kill scores of people and cause billions of dollars in damage.

Now imagine a scenario where the warnings give little lead time and are not as accurate as they've been in recent years. That's what we might well be faced with in the coming months.  

I'm Wondering If Weather Forecast Accuracy Is Already Declining Due To Trump Cutbacks, Decisions

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. 

Before Trump, as Mother Jones explains:

"......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 the hundreds of layoffs under DOGE, that slash and burn of federal agencies that Elon Musk headed up earlier this year. 

There's fewer 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.

Not that any of them really care. 

Florida Meteorologist/Hurricane Expert Now Fears Storm Prediction Accuracy Gone With NOAA Cuts

Florida meteorologists John Morales, one of the nation's
top hurricane forecasters, worried on air that NOAA
cutbacks would mean critical hurricane forecasts 
would be less accurate this year, which in turn
would endanger lives

In the first couple of days of September, 2019, Category 5 Hurricane Dorian crawled through the Bahamas, causing extreme damage. 

Dorian seemed headed straight for Florida, and residents there began to panic. 

Florida meteorologist John Morales, and one of the nation's top hurricane experts, told his audience to relax. 

Morales reassured viewers that Dorian would make a sharp right turn just before reaching Florida, sparing the state from great harm. 

For non-meteorologists, a hurricane making such a sharp, sudden turn didn't sound plausible. But Morales was confident. 

And he was right. That sharp turn came on the afternoon of September 3, and Florida was more or less safe.

I'm bringing this up now because Morales was on the air as usual recently at NBC 6 in South Florida, one day earlier this month. This time, he his audience he no longer has the confidence that he could forecast a hurricane so precisely and so correctly like he did with Dorian

Morales' skill set is as good as ever. NOAA, which is responsible for providing the data for meteorologists like Morales, is not as good as ever. 

".... I am here to tell you that I am not sure that I can do that this year because of the cuts, the gutting, the sledgehammer attack on science in general," Morales said on a June 9 broadcast on NBC 6 South Florida. 

The massive cuts the Trump administration has made to NOAA has led to staffing shortages at National Weather Service offices across the nation, including those in central and southern Florida. Fewer weather balloons are being launched to study the details of what the atmosphere is doing and how that atmosphere will steer storms, and how the strength of those storms change. 

Because of these developments, less data is being collected, "What we're starting to see is that the quality of the forecast is becoming degraded," Morales said. 

There's also a chance that we'll have fewer hurricane hunter flights into hurricanes. Those flights collect detailed data that really help forecasters pin down exactly where a hurricane will come ashore and how strong it will be once it gets there. 

"We may be flying blind, and we may not know exactly how strong a hurricane is before it reaches the coastline," Morales said.

He concluded by telling viewers to call their representatives and tell them these cost must be stopped.

TRUMP'S PEOPLE RESPOND, WHILE MUSK FADES

Unfortunately, I keep getting less and less trustful about the truthfulness of anything a federal spokesperson says under the Trump regime, but here goes:

People magazine, reaching out to NOAA, said a spokesperson said the National Hurricane Center "has a sufficient number of forecasters to fill mission-critical operational shifts during the 2025 hurricane season."  The spokesperson said the hurricane center "remains dedicated" to providing timely weather forecasts and warnings."

We'll see about that. 

Public pressure to provide enough staff to allow NOAA/National Weather Service to perform its mission to protect the public might actually be having a little bit of positive effect on the Trump administration.

Especially with Elon Musk pretty much out of the picture for now. 

Musk was exceptionally keen on getting rid of practically everyone working for the federal government including those in NOAA, To his mind, the only person that needs to be protected from scary weather is himself.  Screw everyone else. He is, after the all, the ultimate Main Character Syndrome poster boy.

Now, Musk's bromance with Donald Trump seems to be over.  (Bill Maher, in the spirt of "Brajalina" or "Bennifer"  called the Musk/Trump bromance "Elump" which is kinda fun).

With Musk out of the way for now and public pressure growing to keep the Nation Weather Service functioning,   there is a tiny bit of appetite for hiring back some of the lost staff at NOAA,  Not enough to solve its problems, but maybe ease them a tiny bit. 

IMPROVING NOAA STAFFING

NOAA says they will reshuffle staff to areas where staff shortages are especially acute. Basically encouraging remaining staff to move to offices that are really short on workers, Which doesn't really solve the overall problem of not enough resources, but I suppose it's a tiny start.

Even better news came a little over a week ago, which is a nice symptom of Musk's departure:  

The National Weather Service lost more than 560 employees to layoff and early retirement incentives., Now, the NWS has managed to get permission to hire about 125 new meteorologists, technicians and specialists for forecast offices around the nation, CNN reported.

This might help with National Weather Service offices that can't be staffed overnight during periods of non-threatening weather. Or even better, keep enough staff to meteorologists can adequately keep their eyes on the ball when there is dangerous weather. 

The new hires still won't be enough to overcome the effects of the bigger staff losses. I, like Morales, am not comfortable with the lack of NOAA staffing, even if those 125 replacement people come on board. I still think weather forecast quality and accuracy is degraded, despite the heroic efforts of remaining meteorologists with NWS. 

SENSIBLE LEGISLATION

I was intrigued with a bill recently introduced by U.S. Senators Jerry Moran, (R-Kansas) and Gary Peters (D-Michigan) that would exempt National Weather Service employees from any executive order or memorandum imposing a hiring freeze,

It would essentially designate NWS employees as public safety officials, sort of like FBI agents or Border Patrol officers. 

Makes sense, since National Weather Service meteorologists' main job is public safety, right?  I also find it interesting that this is a bipartisan bill coming out in these bifurcated times. 

I have no idea whether this bill will go anywhere, but it's another sign the Trump administration is out of step with the majority of Americans who agree with Morales and want to continue receiving the best possible information when deadly storms threaten. 

I imagine the Trump administration isn't a fan of this good idea for Moran and Peters, so we'll see.

Still, under the increasingly autocratic Trump, it's getting riskier to criticize the prez and/or his  administration. Especially if you're a widely watched public figure like Morales. The Trump people have a habit of unleashing their MAGA goons on them by launching social media attacks, doxxing them, even threatening them with arrest. 

Or trying to demand the corporations that employ these outspoken truth tellers "or else."

After the broadcast, The Guardian asked Morales if "he was worried about retaliation from an administration that's south to defund and disparage scientists. Morales said 'No,  not at all. Science is science."

 

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 

 

Red States Learning How Callous Trump Can Be In Disasters

Wreckage left behind by one of the tornadoes that 
hit Arkansas in March. The Trump administration 
has turned down disaster assistance that 
would have helped with the tornado destruction. 

 The state of Arkansas has had a rough spring, beset by tornadoes, intense floods and severe weather. 

As is customary in these situations, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee has asked the federal government for help. For good reason. 

As Huffington Post reports:

"Last month, 14 tornadoes struck Arkansas over the course of two days, killing three people and leaving 32 more injured. The deadly outbreak damaged or destroyed 500 homes, cars and businesses, leaving behind more than $8.8 million in storm damage."

Customarily, U.S presidents respond to request like Huckabee's to issue a disaster declaration and that starts the process in which the Federal Emergency Management Agency to begin organizing funds to help the state with its emergency.

In this case it didn't happen. As HuffPost reports:

"But President Donald Trump said no. In a letter from April 11, the federal government said it had 'determined that the damage from this event was not of such severity and magnitude as to be beyond the capabilities of the state, affected local governments, and voluntary agencies."

To be fair, as bad as the March storm was in Arkansas, it's possible it might not have risen to the level of  a declared disaster in any administration. It's honestly kind of borderline. For instance, half of the destroyed homes were insured, so that might have been a mitigating factor. 

Still, Trump has talked about punishing blue states where voters aren't all that enthusiastic about him. Arkansas is a deep red state, and Gov. Huckabee is Trump's former press secretary, so maybe some Arkansas thought they would get the federal aid. 

The Arkansas Congressional delegation is asking Trump to reconsider the denial of aid, but we'll see where that goes.

The Arkansas tornado aid denial might be the beginning of a harsh new policy from FEMA.

Trump has long said he thinks states should pretty much handle their own disasters, though in many cases they don't have the resources to do that. That shift in tone is starting to make its way into official policy. 

As CNN reports:

"A memo from acting FEMA administrator Cameron Hamilton, a Trump appointee, obtained by CNN, outlines a long list of recommendations for Trump to follow that could drastically reduce the number of emergency declarations the president approves and the amount of federal assistance doled out to cities and states hit by natural disasters."

CNN says the proposal dramatically raised the threshold for states to quality for public assistance, basically quadrupling the amount of damage a community must suffer to receive federal aid. 

The proposal also reduces the share of recovery costs the federal government will pay, limit the types of facilities eligible for assistance and denying all major disaster declarations for snowstorms. 

To us Vermonters, a snowstorm doesn't sound all that expensive, and they often do more good than harm, given our winter sports industry. 

But in other states, especially those in the South and with a lot of urban areas, large snowstorms can be extremely expensive and disruptive.  

Like so much in the Trump administration, it's next to impossible to figure out if they will follow through with these recommendations, abandon them or make them even worse. It'll change every day, I'm sure. 

Moving quickly on this will be particularly harmful to states, Michael Coen, a former FEMA chief of staff under the Obama and Biden administrations told CNN. "If they were given notice and they could work with their state legislatures, they could prepare and budget to be able to handle the risks they know they have. But doing this without giving states any advance notice would leave them in dire straights."

Even with advance notice, I'm not sure how states would cope.  Here in Vermont, we're already dealing with cutbacks in federal funding that are messing up the state budget.  Property taxes are sky high and getting worse, so increased state budgets would make that crisis worse. We have an aging population in Vermont, which also reduces tax revenue as the relative number of wage earners shrinks. 

If we get hit by another massive flood like we did in 2023 and 2024, and we're screwed.  

It's not just Vermont, of course. Every state that faces a disaster will have so much  more trouble recovering because of Trump.  

Disasters are bad enough. It'll be even worse if the federal government compounds those calamities. 

Ominous Real World Effects Of NOAA/NWS Cutbacks Beginning To Show

Real effects of Trump administration cutbacks at 
NOAA are now starting to be felt, and it's going
to keep getting worse and worse. 

 At this point, I'd be willing to wager that the forecasts issued by the National Weather Service are now less accurate and less thorough then they were before Donald Trump took office. 

Between the firings, the slashing of funding, and the voluntary buyouts - another 300 National Weather Service employees were expected to take the latest buyout this past week - the NWS is already crippled. 

I fear the short staffing is already leading to missed forecasts during spells of dangerous weather. And this will only keep getting worse

Eight of the 122 NWS local offices across the nation will have seven or fewer meteorologists doing the work of 12 to 15 people, reports the Washington Post. 

Some of the worst staff shortages are in places where fast-developing and fast-evolving tornadoes, severe storms and flash floods are most common, especially this time of year. These offices include Kansas City, Louisville, Des Moines, Grand Rapids and Omaha. 

The Omaha National Weather Service just recently had to deal with an outbreak of tornadoes and exceptionally destructive hail storms. Those storms required careful monitoring of a complex set of severe storms and quick warnings to the public.  

The Omaha office still managed to do an excellent job of warning residents. However, a tornado that did not have a National Weather Service warning hit Storm Lake, Iowa, which is Omaha's coverage zone.  Sometimes developing tornadoes are missed by even the most conscientious meteorologist, but I still have to wonder if staffing shortages created the environment to miss signs the Storm Lake tornado was forming. 

Here's how things can get missed, as John Sokich, a recently retired director of congressional affairs for the NWS, explained to USA Today. 

Meteorologists are under particular stress during severe weather, when lives are at stake. '"'You're talking 12-hour shifts and you constantly have to be on point,' he said. 'It's physically draining to keep going like that and something will break. Working through high impact weather events for multiple days presents physical limitations is stressful and mentally draining.'

Even more draining when some of the tools you need to monitor the severe weather are no longer available.  

We've already reported on the reduction of weather balloon launches, which help forecasters understand the complexities in the atmosphere that can tell them when and where dangerous storms will hit. 

The Sacramento, California National Weather Service office will do almost all of its forecasting during days shifts, as the night will be minimally staffed unless severe weather is present. This change means that such things as fire weather watches and winter storm warnings will mostly only be issued during the day. 

If these warnings are not issued in a timely manner, that could give emergency managers left time to prepare for hazardous conditions. 

As I've previously reported, the research arm is taking the biggest hit, as the Trump administration thinks anything remotely related to climate change is off limits, because in Trump's addled mind, climate change doesn't exist.

The Pensacola News Journal sums up the effects of the NOAA research cuts just in Florida: 

"If the proposed budget cuts to NOAA are enacted as is, it would have wide-ranging impacts on climate research, significantly decrease the accuracy of hurricane forecasting, end climate monitoring for farmers reliant on the service and ultimately leave coastal communities, like the entire state of Florida, to fend for themselves during hurricane season."

On an even more macro level, the American Meteorological Association and National Weather Association, released a detailed, grim statement about the cutbacks. 

The statement said in part: 

"Without NOAA research, National Weather Service weather models and products will stagnate, observational data collection will be reduced, public outreach will decrease, undergraduate and graduate student support will drop, and NOAA funding for universities will plummet. 

In effect, the scientific backbone and workforce needed to keep weather forecasts, alerts, and warnings accurate and effective will be drastically undercut with unknown - and yet almost certainly disastrous - consequences for public safety and economic health."

This excellent joint statement between the AMA and NWA give us examples of how this all will affect you:

"Imagine what will  happen to tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings if we don't have a robust national weather radar network? What will happen to reservoir management when critical information on rainfall and runoff goes missing? What will happen when Hurricane Hunter aircraft are delayed or data from their instruments are not available to improve hurricane track and landfall forecasts?

NOAA research affects the lives of American taxpayers every day. It is vital to the work of the National Weather Service and the NOAA mission to predict the environment and share that information with businesses, communities, state and local government, and citizens."

 National Weather Service outreach to the public is being cutback too. The National Weather Service office in Sacramento said it would reduce overnight staffing, stop directly answering its publicly listed phone lines, post less often on social media and delay responses to media requests. 

That's fine I'm sure with the Trump administration, as transparence is anathema to them. 

The Trump administration is trying like hell to keep the effects of the cutbacks secret, as if it somehow won't become obvious to the public.

As evidence, here's a excerpt from the Washington Post:

"The Post spoke with 10 employees across the Weather Service and its parent agencies, NOAA and the Commerce Department, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly. Concerned with leaks to the media, the administration is installing monitoring software on NOAA employees' devices to track their communications, two current employees said."

 It seems the Trump administration has particular enmity toward the heroes in our American story. This administration is screwing over veterans, farmers, health care workers and aid organizations and National Weather Service meteorologists. 

And they are our heroes. 

On most days, the weather is routine and mundane, and we rely on these federal meteorologists just to let us know whether we should take an umbrella or our sunglasses to work with us tomorrow morning. 

Nice, but not critical.

But when the weather gets dangerous, these National Weather Service meteorologists save lives. I'd love to know how many over the years, but it's many, many thousands. How many people saved their own lives over the years because the fled to basements and storm shelters because the National Weather Service told them a tornado was coming?

How many of those people would have died had they not received the tornado warnings? Or not fled the coast because there was no hurricane warning saying you'd better get out or else?  . Or a flash flood was menacing their town?

I was eternally grateful to our meteorologists at the National Weather Service office here in South Burlington during our summer flood disasters in 2023 and 2024. 

The flood of 2023 killed two people in Vermont. The floods of 2024 did exactly the same. But how many people would have been killed or injured had the dire warnings the NWS released not happened? 

Neither the July. 10, 2023 nor the July 11, 2024 flood was a surprise because National Weather Service meteorologists bombarded us with warnings, detailed, accurate forecasts and great advice.

Surprises and inaccurate information are what kill people. Gutting the National Weather Service, and NOAA as a whole will greatly increase the likelihood that these inevitable, scary storms will take us by surprise.

Just more evidence that - false campaign rhetoric to the contrary - Donald Trump and his minions do NOT care about people like you and me. At all.  

More NOAA And National Weather Service Woes. Cutbacks, Micromanaging Threaten Forecast Communications

A critical communications tool used by NOAA and the
National Weather Service was almost shut down by
cutback and foot dragging by members of the Trump
administration. If the shutdown had happened, 
weather information that would have resulted in
timely storm warnings would have been crippled. 

Brutal staff cuts, budget cuts all in the name of "saving money" (Hah!) have already badly hurt the National Weather Service's ability to do its literally life saving work.  

Now, even worse, as  Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is  micromanaging in a way  that is threatening public safety even more. 

The Commerce Department oversees the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and by extension the National Weather Service.

Lutnick says he has to personally approve many contracts and extensions. The time it takes for him to do that is slowing operations down, and earlier this week nearly shut down a critical forecasting communication tool whose contract was about to expire,.

And, because a contract wasn't renewed, the National Weather Service halted foreign language forecasts right before one of the worst severe weather outbreaks in years was just about to start.

NOAA COMMUNICATION

Earlier, this week, the NOAA nearly lost a critical communications tool due to foot dragging on contracts. 

  Per Axios:

"As severe thunderstorms rumbled along the East Coast on Monday, the National Weather Service faced the possibility of losing its ability to bring satellite and observational data into forecast offices in a timely manner, starting at midnight, current and former staff told Axios."

I  have to stop right here before going on with the story to just note that Axios has been absolutely fantastic covering how the Trump administration is hindering the National Weather Service. Trump and Elon Musk and DOGE moves are threatening the lives of so many Americans who live in the path of dangerous storms. 

The Trump brigade is  endangering lives in a myriad of other ways too, of course, but since this is a weather and climate blog, I'll stay in my lane for now. 

The most recent problem involved what is known as the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System or AWIPS. It's the main way meteorologists access weather data from satellites, radars, ground observations and computer models 

Axios again: 

"If the contract was to expire - even temporarily - the AWIPS help desk would stop functioning. Data flowing to NWS offices, particularly satellites and observational information, could be subject to delays, to NOAA sources familiar with the matter told Axios. 

This could jeopardize the timely issuance of extreme weather watches and warnings. Forecasters would have been operating on a time delay, which would cost lives during severe weather outbreaks"

Even seemingly mundane tasks at NOAA and National Weather Service offices are getting screwed up A notice went out that facilities services at NOAA headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, such as changing lightbulbs and adjusting thermostats have been suspended.

I have no idea why. It's just petty. 

The whole Lutnick and his minions must approve contracts understandably has eyes rolling. I'm all for oversight, as who wants to see tax dollars wasted or stolen?  But that oversight had already been in place. Concentrating that oversight into the hands of a billionaire (Lutnick) who is beholden to his billionaire friends just makes me nervous. 

I'm not saying by any stretch of the imagination Lutnick is a crook, mostly because I have zero evidence that he is.  But concentrating the oversight to him just invites trouble. 

"This is outrageously inefficient,' Rick Spinrad, NOAA' administrator during the Biden administration, told Axios. 'Secondly, I understand that the recommendations for approval are being vetted by newly replaced political appointees with zero technical experience,' Spinrad said."

Future procurements include a new C-130 Hurricane Hunter aircraft to replace its current aging fleet, moving agency IT operations to the cloud, and building and sending off new weather satellites. A new cloud-based version of AWIPS is also planned.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FORECASTS

Despite the hysteria of MAGA who insist that everyone be proficient in English, not everybody wholes in the United States is fluent in the language. Hell, half of MAGA can't speak or comprehend English very well, but that's another story. 

On Tuesday , a contract with the AI translation firm Lilt lapsed. This was immediately before what will become a nearly week long outbreak of rapidly changing, extreme severe weather, including tornadoes and catastrophic flooding. 

You'd think that people who don't speak English should at least be still told a large tornado was headed toward their house, but that's not the thinking here, apparently. 

Per Bloomberg, via Earth.org

"The five-year contract, valued at $5.8 million and set to be renewed every spring, helped provide weather forecast translations into Spanish, Chinese and three other languages to some 30 cities and metropolitan areas across the country."

There were no plans to substitute in another service until the Lilt contract is renewed. Nobody seems to be sure when or if the contract will be renewed.  

Just the usual incompetence and total lack of professionalism we've come to expect from members fo the Trump administration. 

NOAA Cutbacks From DOGE And Trump Are Continuing To Degrade Weather Forecast Accuracy. More Balloon Launches Scrubbed

DOGE staff cuts at NOAA means more weather balloon
launches have been cut. Those weather balloons are
critical for forecasting all sorts of weather. Including
severe storms and tornadoes. As we head into
tornado season, forecast accuracy will decline,
making these storms even more dangerous. 

 Your weather forecasts might get even less accurate than I thought with all the cutbacks at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA. 

Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE has decimated staffing at NOAA, leading to tough decisions on how to manage weather forecasts, and more importantly, warning the public when dangerous weather looms. 

Up to 1,000 NOAA employees have been let go. 

The latest issues is that more National Weather Service offices are canceling weather balloon launches due to staff shortages.  

That will lead to less reliable weather forecasts, and quite likely unpleasant and deadly storm surprises starting in the near future. 

THE LATEST CUTS

Per the Associated Press:

"The normally twice-daily launches of weather balloons in about 100 locations provide information that forecasters and computer models use to figure out what the weather will be and how dangerous it can get, so cutting back is a mistake, said eight different scientists, meteorologists and former top officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -  the weather service's parent agency."

Believe me, it's not just eight scientists. That's just the ones the AP quoted for their article. There's universal derision and frustration with the NOAA cutbacks.  It will cost lives.

Not that Trump and Elon Musk care. 

We previously reported cutbacks on weather balloon launches from Kotzebue, Alaska; Albany, New York and Gray, Maine. 

Now, we learn balloon launches will be eliminated at Omaha, Nebraska and Rapid City, South Dakota. Twice daily launches will be reduced to once daily at Aberdeen, South Dakota, Grand Junction, Colorado, Green Bay, Wisconsin, Gaylord, Michigan, North Platte, Nebraska and Riverton, Wyoming. 

On top of all the launch cancelations due to staffing shortages,  some balloon launches are not happening because of a helium shortage. Also, there's sometimes technical issues that prevent balloon launches.

WHY THIS MATTERS

Taken together, that leaves big holes and blank spots in the data that goes into comprehensive weather forecasts. 

Many of the newly ended ballon launches are in the northern United States, where the jet stream is most commonly positioned in the spring and early summer.  The jet stream controls weather systems, so you really want to examine that part of the atmosphere for signs of storms. 

That lack of weather balloons will hinder that effort. 

We are now at the beginning of the peak severe storm and tornado season in the United States. Those balloon launches offer critical insights into what is happening on the atmosphere, helping meteorologists predict when severe weather - including tornadoes - might hit and how bad they'll get. 

Since there will now be a big data hole from those canceled balloon launches in the middle of the nation, the eastern United States in particular might have poorer weather forecasts. That's because the weather generally flows west to east. 

"For those of us east of the Rocky Mountains, this is probably the worst time of year," said (University of Oklahoma environmental professor Renee)  McPherson,'  'It's the time of year that we have some of our largest tornado outbreaks, especially as we move into April and May."

"This frankly is just dangerous," McPherson told the AP.

We had an incredibly severe storm outbreak in mid-March that claimed 42 lives. However, lives were saved because the storm was anticipated well in advance. That gave people, including emergency managers, time to prepare. When tornadoes started touching down, warnings went out so that people could seek shelter. That surely saved lives. 

That's the state of affairs with most severe weather outbreaks. 

With the balloon launch cancelations, we'll still get a heads up from the National Weather Service about approaching dangerous weather. But accuracy levels on the location of the bad weather and its intensity could well wane.

Additionally, when severe storms and tornadoes actually develop, short staffed National Weather Service offices might miss the signs of an impending tornado, and thus not issue any warnings until its too late.

If a tornado is approaching,  you want everybody to know about it. The best way to get that word out is through a National Weather Service tornado warning. 

These balloon launch problems will also probably interfere with hurricane forecasts, and predictions for wildfire weather conditions. 

Less important but still worth noting is that your day to day forecasts for routine weather will likely degrade, too.  The joke is that meteorologists are always wrong, but that's not at all backed up by the facts. 

The forecast for today actually has about a 97 percent chance of being accurate. A forecast for three days from now is about 90 percent. A forecast for a week from now has a 70 percent accuracy rate.

These excellent figures will worsen as the Trump administration hacks away at NOAA staffing and resources.  

Trump, Musk and the other oligarchs now seizing control of the United States are protecting from severe weather by their wealth and staff. As opposed us rubes who live in the real world and deal with real things. 

But the oligarchs don't care about us. The DOGE cuts aren't really about saving taxpayer money. It's all about lining pockets of said oligarchs to make them more rich and powerful.  No proof here, but I suspect the government "savings" will never go into most of our hands. 

After all, the DOGE cuts are designed to finance tax cuts for the rich, as the Republican led Congress is set to do.

Follow the money indeed!