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.  

Trump War On First Amendment Continues: FEMA Letter Writers Under Investigation

The Trump administration is investigating
FEMA employees who signed an August
letter warning of mismanagement at
the agency. Loyalty to Trump, well,
Trumps public safety. 

Back in August, about 180 former and then-current Federal Emergency Management Agency staffers signed a letter saying staff DOGE cutbacks and incompetent leadership was endangering U.S. citizens who will inevitably experience terrible disasters like hurricanes and severe floods. 

The dissent letter noted there was no Senate-confirmed and qualified emergency manager running the show, there were cuts to disaster mitigation and recovery efforts and training programs. Also, new policies limited employee autonomy. Micromanagement was already slowing disaster responses.

The letter also urged against politically motivated firings. 

True to form, not much came of the letter, except, of course, an investigation by the Trump administration. And possible politically motivated firings. Gawd forbid anybody even faintly criticize anything he does. 

But we're not talking about the fate of a rich late night talk show host. This is potentially life and death if disaster strikes. But no matter. Dissenters must be punished, lives and the Constitution be damned. 

Per CNN:

"The Trump administration has launched an internal investigation into FEMA employees who signed a public letter to Congress warning that the administration's overhaul of the disaster relief agency is undermining emergency response and endangering the public.

As part of the prove, the agency has ordered the employees - who were placed on leave in August - to sign non-disclosure agreements and schedule interviews with investigators, according to five sources nd internal emails reviewed by CNN

At lest seven FEMA staff emails....from investigators at the Office of Professional Responsibility, which included the non-disclose forms, the sources told CNN."

Shortly after the letter became public, FEMA put some employees on paid leave, but didn't say how many. 

The emails employee received recently said the inquiry is not a criminal investigation (at least not yet, given Trump's reputation). 

Some of those were ordered to submit to interviews within 24 hours, with requests to seek legal counsel first ignored, according to CNN.

The non-disclosure form said targets of the inquiry couldn't tell anybody about it, "except as may be appropriate under applicable law."  Failure to adhere to the gag order would lead to discipline 

CNN says, "The non-disclosure specifies that the agreement does not supersede existing whistleblower protections. However, lawyers for the FEMA employees argue the investigation is an intimidation tactic and likely constitutes illegal retaliation against the workers for exercising their first amendment and whistleblower rights."

In August, similar dissent letters came from employees at the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institutes of Health.

Staffers at the EPA have gotten similar messages to those their colleagues at FEMA received that announce this Trump administration investigation. 

You can be sure Trump, Ice Barbie Kristi Noem and other minions are not exactly investigating the facts of the August FEMA letter. That would make way too much sense.

.. 

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. 

Critical Hurricane Forecast Tool To Stay Active After All

Visible satellite view of Hurricane Milton, which
grew explosively in the Gulf of Mexico last year.
At the last minute, the U.S. Defense Department
reversed a decision that would have crippled
nighttime monitoring of developing hurricanes. 

In a rare, wise move from the U.S. Defense Department. they've reversed a recent decision to end satellite monitoring that is crucial to forecasting hurricanes and other dangerous weather. 

That move in June to end the microwave satellite monitoring technology created outcry among meteorologists because they said ending the monitoring would hamstring hurricane forecasting, just as the tropical storm season was getting under way.

Apparently, the pressure from hurricane forecasters and others worked. 

Per the Washington Post:

"....officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Tuesday that they now expect 'no interruption' in the data their meteorologists received through what is known as the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, which includes microwave-based observations that reveal storm activity even through the cover of darkness."

The Defense Department was vague about the reasons behind the original decision to shut down the satellite monitoring, hinting at security concerns or a need to replace equipment. 

WaPo continues: 

 "'But after feedback from government partners, officials found a way to meeting modernization goals while keeping the data flowing until the sensor fails or the program formally ends in September, 2026,' a Navy spokesperson said in an email."

The reference to September, 2026 stems from the U.S. Space Force plans to replacing existing satellites with new ones. The first began operating in April but doesn't appear ready yet to do the microwave based observations, at least for storm forecasting. Another satellite should begin running in 2027.

Meteorologists were relieved at the late breaking news. 

 "Some good news for a change! We will keep a critical source of microwave satellite data going for at least another year, or until the satellites, which are already operating 15 year past their expected lifetime, fail," said Dr. Jeff Masters on Bluesky.

There's plenty of satellite data out there to monitor hurricanes during the day. A visual assessment of the clouds swirling around a growing hurricane can offer some of the clues as to whether the storm is strengthening and by how much and where the danger is heading.

The microwave data that almost went away is crucial to head off what hurricane forecasters call "sunrise surprises."

Under the cover of darkness, hurricanes sometimes explosively strengthen, catching people off guard who were expecting a relatively weak hurricane and instead facing a monster, Climate change seems to have increased the frequency of these exploding hurricanes. 

The microwave data allows meteorologists to catch these strengthening trends early, allowing them to quickly adjust forecasts and warn people in nearby coastal areas. 

"The last-minute move averts a crisis for forecasters who rely on the data to predict dangerous and potentially deadly episodes of rapid intensification and their computer models that use data from these microwave imagers to predict the movement and intensity of hurricanes," Michael Lowry, a former National Hurricane Center scientist, wrote on Substack. 

 We are just getting into the heart of hurricane season.  While no hurricane threats are looming now, it's inevitable that we'll need to carefully watch the Atlantic for these dangerous storms late this month and on into September and October.  

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.  

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 

 

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! 

 

Even More Damaging Layoffs Coming To NOAA As Trump, Musk Care Nothing About Public Safety.

About 1,000 more layoffs announced by the Trump
administration will further worsen weather
forecasting and public safety in the U.S.
Not that Trump or Elon Musk care or anything. 

NOAA and the National Weather Service are already crippled by Trump and Elon Musk-forced layoffs, as I've already reported. 

On Wednesday, things appear to be getting worse. 

As the Associated Press reported Wednesday afternoon:

"The Trump administration is starting another round of job cuts - this one more than 1,000 - at the nation's weather, ocean and fisheries agency, four people familiar with the matter tell the Associated Press.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Tuesday began plans to lay off 10 percent of its current workforce, people inside and outside the agency said, with some of them requesting anonymity due to fear of retribution.

The numbers were presented to NOA employees and managers were asked to submit names of positions for layoffs to agency headquarters, which will then go to NOAA's parent agency, the Department of Commerce, on Wednesday, the people said."

We already had earlier rounds of Trump firings at NOAA, encouraged retirements at NOAA, and the elimination of virtually all new employees. Which, as the Associated Press reports, NOAA will have eliminated one of four jobs at the agency. 

Project 2025, a blueprint Trump minions developed in the months and years before he was elected, called for the elimination of NOAA and the National Weather Service. They said that privatizing the whole thing would be better.

Because throwing up paywalls in order to receive life-saving weather warnings, diminishing public safety and making weather forecasts less accurate seems to be in the national interest, in the backwards upside down thinking of Trump and his fanboys and girls. 

Per the Associated Press:

"'This is not government efficiency,' said former NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad. 'It is the first steps toward eradication. There is no way to make these kinds of cuts without removing or strongly compromising mission capabilities.'"

"....NOAA spokeswoman Monica Allen said the agency's policy is not to discuss internal personnel matters, ut said NOAA will 'continue to provide weather information, forecasts, and warnings pursuant to our public safety mission."

Which I call bullshit on, since before the new cuts, weather monitoring such as balloon launches, hurricane forecasting and other services ares scaled back.  So forecasts, information and warnings are already degraded. 

Don't take my word for it. Per AP again:

"Weather forecasts will worsen and 'people are going to start seeing this very quickly,' warned former NOAA chief scientist Craig McLean".  

He also said research cuts will make it harder or impossible for the United States to keep improving weather forecasts and monitoring. 

"People are silently watching the United States decline as a technological leader.... America got to the moon, but our weather forecasts won't be the greatest."

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MORE FIRINGS CONFUSION/FEARS

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

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

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

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

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

Hurricane Hunters

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FEMA AND WILDFIRES

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

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

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

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

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

I dunno. 

Trump To People Threatened By Dangerous Weather: Drop Dead

Friday's firing of hundreds of staffers at NOAA,
including the National Weather Service, put
American lives in danger, but the Trump
administration is unconcerned about that. 

As expected and dreaded, the Trump administration, led by the Elon Musk putting public safety during extreme weather events in jeopardy. 

The firings include positions at the already-understaffed National Weather Service, which is the nation's front line warning system for when storms turn dangerous. 

Exact numbers are hard to come by, but it looks like about 10 percent of NOAA's work force would lose their jobs. 

The first test of how these cutbacks will affect public safety could come as early as Tuesday and Wednesday, as a potentially significant tornado outbreak seems possible across the Deep South. 

Such outbreaks of severe weather require a high level of attention from meteorologists because such conditions evolve quickly. A harmless thunderstorm can become tornadic in minutes, and the National Weather Service needs to be ready to issue warnings. 

A lack of staff could mean key hints that a tornado is forming could be missed.

Per the Washington Post:

"Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California at Los Angeles, said the move to fire NOAA staff 'including mission-critical and life-saving roles at the National Weather Service is profoundly alarming'

'I want to be clear: If there were to be large staffing reductions at NOAA and NWS...there will be people who die in extreme weather events and weather-related disasters who would not have otherwise.'"

The firings include about 375 probationary employees at the National Weather Service. The pre-existing short staffing there is due in large part to a previous hiring freeze imposed by the Trump administration. 

Also on Friday, news broke that a federal judge ruled the mass firings of probationary government works across several agencies are probably illegal. The judge ordered the Office of Personnel Management to rescind directions ordering the mass firings.

It's unknown how this ruling will ultimately affect the firings at NOAA and other agencies. 

Already the cutbacks are being felt. The National Weather Service routinely launches balloons into the air so minute details of atmospheric conditions can be assessed. This data is fed into forecasting computer models. 

Balloon launches are already being canceled due to new staff shortages, so the quality of these forecasting models might well diminish.  That's especially bad when emergency managers are trying to get an idea in advance of where a severe storm might go and how bad it will get.  This helps them pre-position supplies in the path of the storm to get an early jump on recovery. 

Worse climate models will mean worse, more inaccurate forecasts. 

Besides, a lot of FEMA workers have been canned by Trump and Musk, too. The combination FEMA and National Weather Service firings will certainly mean emergency responses to U.S. weather disasters will become much worse. Again, unnecessarily threatening lives. 

Your local TV meteorologist will be affected by the cutbacks as well. They rely on data from the NOAA and the National Weather Service to formulated their forecasts. If the data degrades because the NWS firings, so will the TV meteorologists' forecasting accuracy, no matter how talented that meteorologist is. 

Well known, professional meteorologists around the nation condemned the firings. "Mass firings have started at the National Weather Service, including people in critical roles. Cutting waste is great. Mindlessly taking a sledgehammer to a valuable organization is stupid. All the know-it-alls who said we were fabricating this threat can shut up now, thanks," said Josh Morgerman on X.  Morgerman is a well -known hurricane and typhoon chaser and documentarian. 

When the decision to fire NOAA staffers seemed imminent but hadn't quite happened yet, veteran meteorologist (and one of the nation's top tornado experts) had this to say on X:

"The post is not about politics, but about support for my friends that work for the National Weather Service, part of NOAA, a federal agency.

NWS meteorologists work long, hard hours serving the people of this country, not only during times of severe weather, but on routine days as well,

Their surface and upper air observation networks along with computer models radars and satellites are critical for all meteorologists, including those of us in the private sector."

There is already some political pushback to the NOAA firings. We'll see what happens with those. Colorado Sens. John Hickenlooper (D) and Michael Bennet (D) and Rep. Joe Negus (D) have called for an independent investigation into the mass firings, according to The Hill. 

I know this seems awfully conspiratorial, but I think a goal of the Trump administration is to have people live in fear. They're easier to control that way. So they fear having Medicaid, and Social Security taken away. 

The NOAA firings are another form of fear: Will we still receive adequate warnings when severe weather threatens?

This is all also likely to be a part of Project 2025, the wide ranging 922-page plan developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation to remake the federal government under Trump. 

Trump seems to be playing by the Project 2025 playbook. That plan called for privatizing weather forecasting in the U.S.  That, would, of course, make weather forecasting less reliable, and perhaps put critical weather warnings behind paywalls that some people might not be able to afford. 

I still worry we're heading in that direction, which would be even worse that the stupid, ill-advised NOAA firings we saw on Friday. 

This also all could further enrich Trump. Musk and other U.S. oligarchs. Hey, if the billionaires are able to collect a few extra billion beyond what they already have, it's worth the price of lost lives. At least in their rotten minds. 

 

 

NOAA Trouble: DOGE Security Breaches, Threatened Major Budget Cuts, Firings, Public Safety Threatened

The DOGE and Trump ongoing attacks against 
NOAA and the National Weather Service aren't 
really about cost cutting as they'd have you believe.
It's all about denying reality while enriching
the billionaire and corporate class at
the expense of the rest of us. 

The oligarch tech bros and their master Elon Musk are now after NOAA and the National Weather Service. 

Which I guess is fine if you want a future where if a tornado bearing down as a complete surprise, because there was no decent National Weather Service to warn you about it.  

Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE is attacking NOAA just like is many other federal departments.  Since NOAA is primarily a science-oriented organization, we can't have that! To the MAGA crowd, Science = Bad.  

The fantasy is that if you deny science and reality, things will just do what you want.  

Until reality bites you in the butt.   

Those bitten butts clearly haven't happened yet, so Trump and Musk and the MAGA crowd continue to have their gleeful field day. 

CUTS AND JOB LOSS

The DOGE crowd is already telling NOAA employees to get ready to pack their bags. 

Per CBS News:

"Former NOAA officials told CBS News that current employees have been told to expect a 50 percent reduction in staff and budget cuts of 30 percent." 

Not that Congress or anybody else in Washington seems to care, but Musk and his snotty-nosed frat pack bros in his DOGE troupe aren't the ones that are supposed to be cutting staff and budgets.  (I swear when somebody asks the parents of these young bucks how/what they're doing, they change the subject).

Congress has the power of the purse. President Trump can of course propose big budget and staff cuts and ask Congress to approve them. Which they might, since so many in Congress are his fan boys and girls. 

So we're so far just standing by while Trump and Musk and their minions circumvent the Constitution in their oligarchical, billionaire ways.

Of course, if there is waste and mismanagement at NOAA, that needs to go. A fact-based review of expenditures is a great idea. But a dictatorial purge?  As the cost of public safety?

As CNN reports:

Further staff reductions at the National Weather Service "means we have a higher - a maybe much higher probability of missing life-saving weather warnings and giving people a heads up they need," said Mary Glackin, former president of the American Meteorological Society and former high ranking NOAA official. 

Hurricane forecasting is just one area of potential trouble. 

As CNN points out, a dozen people work in the National Hurricane Center's specialist forecasting unit.  That's the staffing level that's been in effect for years, even as the number of storms increase. Cutbacks would likely harm hurricane forecasting. 

SECURITY

The big Vermont flood of July, 2023 killed two Vermonters,
but superb warnings from the National Weather 
Service prevented more deaths from this
very dangerous weather event. 

Musk and his minions are just barging into sensitive payroll and computer systems like he owns them, creating security risks, and potentially unilaterally changing payroll, systems and sensitive employee data with no oversight. 

Former NOAA officials told CBS that these DOGE bros showed up at NOAA headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland and at the U.S. Commerce Department building in Washington DC . (The Commerce Department oversees NOAA like they owned the place. 

Again, per CBS:

"'They walked through security like it didn't apply to them' Andrew Rosenberg, a former deputy director  for NOAA, said of DOGE staff. 'They were there and they were going through IT systems.....They're not asking substantial questions about what NOAA does and the importance of its role. This isn't a review to figure out efficiency."

At least one Congress creature is making a bit of a public stink about this, so we'll take anything we can get. CBS News reports:

"Democratic Sen. Chris Van Holler of Maryland, who represents the state where NOAA is headquartered, said his office is investigating DOGE's work on NOAA, which includes such agencies as the National Weather Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

'Hearing reports that Musk's cronies are targeting NOAA - infiltrating key systems and locking out career employees,' Van Hollen posted on X Tuesday. "NOAA is vital for weather forecasting, scientific research & more. Their critical work saves lives. My team and I are looking into this & we will not stand for it.'"

It's not just Van Hollen that's hearing about this. Aides to various Congress creatures have heard the same thing.  

SCIENCE 

Getting rid of career employees at NOAA damages the work of science and of weather forecasting, but the Trump administration is going further with this anti-science tirade 

Per Wired:

"'A number of federal employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. federal agency that monitors and models the oceans and atmosphere for the purpose of predicting changes in climate and weather, have received orders to temporarily cease communication with foreign nationals, including those working directly with the U.S. government, WIRED has learned."

 Wired reports that NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service had received orders to pause "all international engagements" including "foreign national colleagues" including emails "with foreign national colleagues."

It's unclear how extensive this directive extends in NOAA.  The Marine Fisheries Service deals with offshore wind energy among many other things, and Trump hates, hates offshore wind energy for some reason 

So that might be part of it. 

But, Wired's reporting gets even more ominous.

"According to another source at NOAA, the incommunicado orders extend to the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service. In addition to gathering data from across the federal government, NESDIS relies on a wide range of international partners. NESDIS's weather and climate data is essential not only to air transportation safety but also to combat drought, monitor coral reef destruction and safeguard railway shipping carriers against dangerous weather."

If the directive to stop communicating with foreign nationals ends up extending across NOAA, that right there cripples our ability to forecast weather.  

What goes on in the atmosphere over other countries doesn't stay there. Weather systems are interconnected globally.  A big change in the jet stream over, say, Mongolia, could well have a big influence on what kind of weather eventually happens in Peoria. 

You want an America First policy? Then you have to keep tabs on what's going on elsewhere in the world. Which means cooperating with other international meteorological an climatological organizations. We need to keep close tabs on weather conditions worldwide to help determine if we in the United States face dangerous storms. 

They of course there's climate science. You know, global warming? It affects the United States, too, though Trump seems not to think so. It's getting to the point that I'm actually starting to hope a climate-powered hurricane storm surge damages Mar-A-Lago just to teach him a lesson. After all, just because Trump decrees climate change is a hoax, doesn't make it so. Jokes on him, right?

You need global cooperation to study and combat climate change, including the effects it has on the United States. America First, indeed! 

THE GOAL

Like all the lofty talk from DOGE and Trump that they're trying to end government waste, this is largely about making billionaire and corporations richer. 

Project 2025 calls for privatizing NOAA and the National Weather Service. Here's one reason why, via The Guardian:

"....it had been a longtime goal of corporations that rely on NOAA data to prevent the agency from making the data public, instead of giving it directly to private corporations that create products based on it, such as weather forecasting services."

You get more details on this from NPR, which noted in one interview that websites made detailed National Weather Service data for anybody to access.  That doesn't sit well with private companies, noted Wailin Wong of the Planet Money podcast The Indicator. "If customers can get sophisticated data from the government for free, maybe they wouldn't pay for that kind of information anymore," he said, 

If you go full bore and privatize the National Weather Service, which seems to be an eventual goal here, people will need to pay for their weather forecasts. Sure, they already do in taxes. 

Each individual taxpayer in the United States spends $3 a year for all that the National Weather Service does. Everything from telling you to bring the umbrella to work with you tomorrow to telling you to hide in the basement NOW because that tornado is headed toward you. 

You can be sure a privatized system would cost all of us more, at least those of us who can afford it.  People who can't would just be out of luck.  I guess in a billionaire's mind, the poors don't deserve the warnings that would save their lives in hurricanes and floods and such.

Americans were sold on the idea of limiting government waste. I'm sold on the idea of eliminating government waste

I think many of the people who voted for Trump had gotten themselves convinced he's the guy who would combat this huge, gaping growing inequality between the billionaire class and everyone else. 

I just hope people soon realize that's not what's going on here. It's not about giving us taxpayers a break.  It's a all a grift. NOAA is the one many pieces of that grift in action. 

And we'll all be the losers because of it. Except of course for Elon Musk and his merry band of oligarchs.