Meteorologists are warning that the recent cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service could have real impacts on the safety of our communities, from the daily forecasts we get in our weather apps to the advance warnings we receive about extreme weather events.
Recently, the Office of Personnel Management laid off about 880 employees from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), or more than 7% of the agency's workforce, which was already understaffed with more than 600 vacant jobs even before the firings.
And the Associated Press has reported more job cuts are in the works — along with the potential lease cancellation for the Center for Weather and Climate Prediction, which has been described as "the nerve center for the entire weather enterprise in the United States."
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Definitely 💯 Bernadette Woods Placky is the chief meteorologist for Climate Matters, a policy-neutral nonprofit that helps the public understand the links between weather and increasing global temperatures, and she spoke to The Cool Down to break down the real-world impacts of these cuts on our daily lives, as well as on our future.
"What's at risk is our safety"
In any extreme weather situation, weather data and forecasting are critical to helping local officials prepare. It's how they know how much salt to lay down, when to issue evacuation orders, whether to close schools, or if a cooling center should be opened.
Without that data, our safety is compromised.
Woods Placky explained the main role of NOAA, which includes the National Weather Service, is "to keep people safe and prepared."
When it comes to extreme weather events, like tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, or extreme heat, the agency aids in research, data collection, forecasting, and modeling. Without proper staffing to monitor our atmospheric conditions, we will be less prepared when these disasters strike, leaving our communities and homes more vulnerable.
"What's at risk is our safety and preparedness, from our health to our economy, our lives, and our livelihoods," Woods Placky said.
And these impacts aren't some far-off consequence of the budget cuts — they're already being felt.
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Woods Placky explained that during a recent storm, the launch of several weather balloons from one of the Alaska National Weather Service offices was either disrupted or canceled due to budget cuts.
Fewer weather balloons mean less critical atmospheric data gathered, resulting in less accurate weather forecasts. This leaves our communities more vulnerable to extreme weather disasters at a time when such disasters are getting more common and severe.
"If we don't have that data, our weather forecasting models just aren't as accurate," she said. "The reason we are able to keep people safe and give them a multi-day warning for the chance of tornadoes is because of that data collection and the instrumentation that's fed into our weather models."
The National Hurricane Center was hit by the firings, too, Woods Placky explained.
When a strong hurricane is expected, the center deploys airborne hurricane hunters and drone-controlled buoys to bring back data that tells meteorologists about the strength and path of the storm.
These processes are critical in getting proper "warnings out and working with the full emergency management chain to do evacuations in a timely way," Woods Placky explained. "If we don't have the people and we don't have the data, it just puts more lives at risk."
Weather forecasts = data + people
The lifeblood of NOAA is the data that it collects for the U.S. and the rest of the world.
This open-access information is what powers everything from our weather apps to industries that rely on weather data, including aviation, shipping, vacation destinations, and more.
"Private weather companies are successful because they get access to that data," Woods Placky explained. "Our weather apps, our TV forecasts, all come from that same data, and without that, the way the private weather industry is set up right now in the United States can't operate the same way."
And this data isn't magically obtained.
It requires real workers with real expertise to operate, monitor, and interpret all of the tools and instruments required — and Woods Placky said these organizations were "already understaffed" before the cuts.
"People don't fully understand that the weather information they get primarily comes from NOAA and the National Weather Service, so people think they can just go to their app, or they can turn on their television or watch The Weather Channel," she explained. "But all of it comes from that centralized source of collecting data and running computer models. … Every one of those forecasters, every one of those services — without that information, they can't do their proper job."
Not only could the cuts impact our day-to-day weather forecasts and extreme weather warnings, but Woods Placky warned the impacts could trickle down to other aspects of our lives, such as when you receive a package you ordered or the safety of a flight you're taking.
Weather data impacts a pilot's ability to reduce turbulence or know about thunderstorms that might cause them to reroute their flight path. It also shapes routes for shipping services, whether they be truck deliveries or boat routes.
The data is also critical for farmers, who use it to inform what to plant, where to plant it and when to harvest it. "Without good weather information and forecast information in the short term and in the longer term, that will affect the type of food you get, the quality of food, and the quantity of food," Woods Placky said.
While this critical data is still accessible for now, it's at risk.
"The data is still being collected and stored, but we keep hearing of future cuts," she added. "If we lose more people, what is the capacity to continue collecting and storing this data?"
Seeing patterns and predicting the future
Not only is NOAA's data important for our safety in the immediate moment, but it's also fed into computer models that can help us cope with our changing climate in the long term.
"It can help us warn people of storm systems that are either strengthening or coming their way," and it can also play into longer-scale modeling," Woods Placky explained.
The more frequently we compile this data, the more we can learn about how the weather is changing, how disasters are getting stronger, and where more people and their livelihoods are at risk. Helping us understand what might come next is invaluable in helping us prepare for it.
Woods Placky also expressed concern about the budget cuts causing us to lose talented weather experts and minimize focus on weather innovation when we need them most.
"We are still losing people from extreme weather and with our changing climate, those risks are only on the rise," she said. "We need more people, more smart people, who are putting their minds and getting supported to research and innovation around how to better model, how to apply new AI techniques to forecasting and communication, how to get this information out through new media ecosystems … how to warn more properly and more effectively."
Along those lines, Woods Placky cautioned that the cuts come at a particularly concerning time.
"We're going to get into our season of the biggest extremes — that's not just hurricanes and severe storms, but that's also looking at wildfires and heat in general," she said.
Woods Placky said she is looking to sound the alarm that there could be real harm to our communities if our country isn't as prepared for some of the disasters the NOAA and NWS were built to confront.
"Definitely alarm bells," she said.
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