A Posting For Meteorologists: Regarding the National Weather Service

In the past 24 hours:

I have received a note from one of my friends who took part in the protest at NOAA headquarters. Ironically, the former head of NOAA was there whose tenure regarding the National Weather Service was questionable -- at best. 

and, another friend forwarded the piece below from Dr. Cliff Mass of the University of Washington's meteorology department. I recommend reading it. 

Subject: Reality and Opportunity

We are all scientists and we are trained to deal with reality. To propose hypotheses and to test them. We need to do the same in the current situation.

There are lots of worries about NOAA being terminated by the administration.  Reality: this can not happen because NOAA is enabled and tasked by legislation....lots of legislation. NOAA is not going anywhere. The observational systems overseen by NOAA are not going anywhere.

There are all kinds of diabolical suggestions on this list of the private sector secretly rubbing their hands about NOAA/NWS demise.  There is absolutely no evidence of this. The private sector folks I have talked to strongly reject this view. I believe them.

We are clearly at a revolutionary moment....a time of rapid change. We need to understand this and manage the situation for an optimal outcome. We need to be honest about the current situation.

There has been bureaucratic stagnation and inefficiency on the government side of our field. Anyone want to deny this? US Government NWP is not longer world class. Cooperation with NCAR and the University community has been inadequate. The move to testing AI prediction in government has been slow. Too many government agencies were doing the same thing. There are inefficient bureaucratic structures in NOAA and other agencies. The NWS office/region structure is dated and inefficient. Anyone want to argue with this? We can fix these issues if we have the will...this is opportunity.

The current administration is a revolutionary group.....and idealistic. As idealistic as we are. They know the Federal bureaucracy has grown too big and inefficient. They are going to do cuts....this is going to happen. But they don't have the knowledge to do it correctly or surgically in our field. We do. Thus, there is opportunity....if we can help them make the changes in a good way.

Many of our folks want to sign petitions. Say no to change. Fight!  This will go nowhere. It will only convince the administration that we happy, fat campers with the old system. They will simply push us aside and certainly will not take our protestations serious. 

Only if we acknowledge that change is needed and offer assistance in doing it right will we be at the table.

The AMS would be a very good group to organize some an offer, something I have tried to convince the Council to do. I even wrote a draft. But the Exec. Committee decided to do something else. 

Finally, if one reads Elon Musk's bio, it is clear how he likes to work....fire folks and make fundamental change, with the knowledge that there are always mistakes. He gave the number..about 20% of the decisions will be mistake that require repair. And, with evidence, he is very willing to reverse the errors. Well, they have made mistakes. Are going to tell them explicitly what mistakes they have make...and how to fix them?

So, we have two very distinct ways to proceed regarding the NWS: 

1. Protest to Keep the Status Quo or 
2. Get Onboard and Try to Fix the NWS so it gets out of its funk of recent years and resumes providing outstanding service to the people of the United States. 

I chose the latter and wrote a detailed note to DOGE this morning. You can send them a note here. Make a copy of what you send to DOGE and send it to your Senators and Representative. All of them have contact pages at their web sites. Below is Sen. (R) Roger Marshall's:

Or, telephone your representative. I did this recently for Rep. (D) Sharice Davids and her legislative director got back with me. She has a bipartisan bill before the House regarding tornado sirens and other warning methods. He was very interested and attentive when I shared information with him. 

Most people in the House and Senate will appreciate receiving the professional opinion (be constructive!) of their constituents. 

What were the points I made?

• NOAA has lots of fat. Repurpose that money to NWS and any left over to the Treasury. 
• NWS is a vital national resource but it is increasingly having issues providing accurate and timely forecasts and warnings of extreme weather. 
• Reverse the layoffs. Get the NWS's (far too many) open positions filled. Taking 9 months to fill a position is absurd. 
• Establish a "back to the future" school (as the NWS had from ~1991 to 2004) in extreme weather forecasting and warning techniques. It should be of 4 to 6 weeks duration. 
• Restore all closed upper-air observing stations and, if there are funds, establish limited (2, preferably) additional automatic balloon stations on abandoned Gulf oil platforms and in mainland areas where there are large gaps. These are critical in an era of mesoscale modeling. 
• Fund gap-filler inexpensive C-band radars, especially since the replacements for the S-band WSR-88D's are not forecast to be available before 2040, if then. The latter are increasingly unreliable.
• To insure the above investment is worthwhile and to provide accountability in an era of increasing mega-disasters, establish a U.S. Disaster Review Board modeled after the hugely successful National Transportation Safety Board. It will study all types of natural disasters and make recommendations for improving our forecast and response abilities.

If you would like to send the above or use my many recent posts (see my Dec. 1 - 3 "recommendations" for details), please feel free to do so.

And, because this comes up from time to time: The last thing I am doing is trying to create a job for myself. I have zero interest in working for the Disaster Review Board. I would, perhaps, consider a 90-day consulting role while it was being set up but that's it!!! I am happily retired and want to spend the time with my family.

So, the choice is yours: Protest or Constructively Communicate. Good luck with whichever you choose.