No One Is Cutting the National Weather Service - Updated
Good Friday morning. I have bumped yesterday's post (below) about cuts to the NWS to the top of the blog and am adding the information in blue pertaining to yesterday's cuts. These points are in no order. Please note: if you scroll down, you find that the reference to cuts was in the context of public safety. No public safety cuts have been made.
- I am aware of cuts made to the NWS during the Obama Administration. I have been sounding the alarm about increasingly serious issues in the NWS for 14 years! Where was everyone who is complaining now when all of this began? Or, is this merely politics to the critics?
- The USA is $38 trillion in debt which is going to sink us all unless stopped! Cuts must be made, even to things we like.
- No cuts affecting public safety were made yesterday. Yes, provisionary jobs at the tsunami warning centers (TWC) were cut. However, TWCs are a mess. The Pacific tsunami warning center is in Honolulu and the Atlantic center is located -- in all places -- Anchorage. Both are fully redundant (i.e., Anchorage could issue a tsunami warning in the Pacific) and they don't work well together. Two weeks ago when the strong earthquake occurred in the Caribbean, five of the six tsunami warning buoys were out of service and had been for months! Since there will never be a time when we have tsunamis simultaneously in both oceans, we would be better off locating a single TWC in Wichita or Omaha (so we don't have to worry about the safety of the oceanographers' families during warning periods) to handle both oceans. The money saved should be used to fix the broken NWS infrastructure.
- The cuts at the NOAA modeling labs have nothing to do with public safety. As I have -- over and over -- recommended, the NWS needs to be out of the computer model creation business. They are terrible at it. America has gone from #1 to #4 in terms of the accuracy of the forecasts made from our models compared to other nations'. As Dr. Cliff Mass has documented, taxpayers are currently supporting seven atmospheric modeling groups, which is absurd. Two would be about right.
- Cutting NOAA outside of weather? Great! Below is one of its grants to its favored climate causes.
- I also -- strongly -- believe the NWS should be cut out of NOAA, combined with other federal weather groups, and made into a new Weather Bureau (see, here). Weather Bureau was its name before NOAA was created in 1970.
- As I am writing this, I just received a sarcastic comment indicating I was not empathetic to those who lost jobs yesterday. I am. It is a terrible thing to lose a job, especially if it was not because of something you personally did. However, since about 2000, I have been counseling young meteorologists and future meteorologists that in an era of "government shutdowns," et cetera, they probably have more job security in the private sector. I did this as recently as the 15th at the National Storm Chasers' Summit. For better or worse, the world has changed in the past 50 years.
- I could go on about the culture issues at NWS/NOAA which hamper them from doing their jobs as well as they could. Major changes need to be made.
This is the straight scoop. NWS/NOAA desperately need major changes.
The post I made yesterday morning, verbatim, is below.
--- Original Post Below ---
This take aged real quickly, didn't it?
ReplyDeleteSorry to disappoint you, but a cut at NOAA or the Geophysical Labs (see; https://www.axios.com/2025/02/27/layoffs-hit-noaa-national-weather-service) does not affect forecasting or public safety. As readers know, I have been -- strongly -- urging NWS to be severed from NOAA into its down agency. And, that new agency should NOT do modeling (which is done at GL). Please see: https://www.mikesmithenterprisesblog.com/2024/12/the-future-of-noaa-and-national-weather.html
DeleteSo, I'm not the least bit worried about things that do not affect forecasting nor term warnings.
To clarify my typo: ...into its own (stand alone) agency....
DeleteBut yesterday (Thursday 2/27) many employees were cut from WFOs and from NCEP centers, both under the NWS umbrella! EMC lost 12 employees in one fell swoop -- 1/4 of their federal staff.
ReplyDeleteAnyone cut who was in a probationary status should have federal experience in place. In the future, if they apply for the NWS again, their application will include at least 5 extra points (in addition to the 10 points if they are a veteran) to increase their odds of getting hired again.
ReplyDeleteI for one do feel bad for anyone going through being cut. I went through at least two cuts in the federal force. One in the 1980s when I was hired in a temp position to help cover a job at NCDC in Asheville, NC. That experience got me 5 points but it was almost four years before I got a position in the NWS as a forecaster. The other happened during Obama's administration toward the end of my career.
I remember one of my first fellow employees in the early 1990s saying that jobs were cut out of the Weather Bureau in the 1950s. So, this isn't the first time it has happened.
I agree with Mike Smith in this situation. I also know that there is no way our government can continue to be solvent running trillions of dollars in debt. By the way, try to imagine what "trillions of dollars" means. The resulting inflation reminds me of people living in the southern part of the country during the Civil War when the printing press was used to increase the money supply. Grocery items got so expensive that it was said a person brought their money in a wheelbarrow to the store and brought home their purchase in their purse.
To my knowledge the 1340 job series (Meteorologists) have not yet been designated as Public Safety positions by OPM/OMB. That designation could still happen, and we all agree it should (as NWS has historically been Excepted during shutdowns). But unless/until that happens NWS is still vulnerable to RIF actions.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment about the 1340 job series. Are you saying that the memo cited in this post about not laying off "public safety" doesn't count? Can you expand a bit? Thank you!!
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