The Crisis in the National Weather Service
Posted late this afternoon on X. This is an addition to the essay below. The National Weather Service is falling apart. That is the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn by informed observation of its cumulative output during the past, highly active, 30 days of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. Before proceeding, I want to stipulate that the Trump Administration’s handling of the cost cutting and downsizing of NOAA earlier this year was unhelpful. Yes, there was – and still is – fat in the NWS and NOAA. Cutting the deficit should be a high priority but those cuts need to be well thought out and well executed. I also want to state there are exhausted people in the NWS who are suffering from vast amounts of overwork due to manpower shortages that existed before President Trump took office -- that were made worse by President Trump’s layoffs and then rehiring, in some cases, people with little to no experience. The quality of work of bu...