This section is for discussing the situation regarding the government’s handling of funding and staffing for NOAA & NWS.
The usual rules apply: While politics are inevitable here, please state opinions about what is going on without name-calling. And be civil to others commenting.
Comments not following this will be removed.
Thank you, TK.
Eric fisher
“All expertise related to radiological and nuclear threats is eliminated. All capacity for natural disasters response has been eliminated,” agency officials said in a memo after the layoffs.
Health experts tasked with investigating cancer clusters, overseeing chemical weapons demolition and responding to toxic substance spills were also cut, multiple officials said.
cbsnews.com/news/milwaukee…
https://x.com/ericfisher/status/1910793569868407141?s=46&t=neG9xl79s_BtNQXSGBlqLQ
Good heavens. This is the link at the end of his tweet
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/milwaukee-schools-lead-poisoning-cdc-denies-help/
And then there is this. Anyone referring to climate change and using the word climate will be fired.
As a result, the administration now plans to eliminate the research arm of NOAA and close all weather and climate labs and eviscerate its budget along with several other NOAA offices.
This is because the word climate is used by the agency. I’m trying to figure out how to discuss weather without using the word climate
The beginning of Eric’s evening forecast has a relevant discussion, including “I don’t even know how I’m going to look up historical weather information if something doesn’t change soon.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/weather/
The video that I’m referring to will only be available with this link until a new forecast is released.
Darn I think I missed it. So sorry.
I used your wording and searched Twitter. This has the address of where to contact I believe. I need to look into it a bit more.
https://x.com/ericfisher/status/1910757869915349504?s=46&t=neG9xl79s_BtNQXSGBlqLQ
This is the graphic.
https://ibb.co/mrdKqFmF
There were false comments that doge cut tornado warnings which resulted in KY and MO deaths.
But this is an interesting read
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/05/20/trump-doge-nws-cuts-kentucky-tornadoes/
The link to this is at the end. It includes citations. If you don’t have FB, I’m happy to post more here.
That change shows dramatically in cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA is an agency in the Commerce Department, established under Republican president Richard Nixon in 1970, that monitors weather conditions, storms, and ocean currents. The National Weather Service (NWS), which provides weather, wind, and ocean forecasts, is part of NOAA.
NWS forecasts annually provide the U.S. with an estimated $31.5 billion in benefits as they enable farmers, fishermen, businesspeople, schools, and individuals to plan around weather events.
As soon as he took office, Trump imposed an across-the-board hiring freeze, and billionaire Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” fired probationary employees and impounded funds Congress had appropriated. Now, as hurricane season begins, experts in storms and disasters are worried that the NOAA will be unable to function adequately.
Cuts to the NWS have already meant fewer weather balloons and thus less data, leaving gaps in information for a March ice storm in Northern Michigan and for storms and floods in Oklahoma in April. Oliver Milman of The Guardian reported today that 15 NWS offices on the Gulf of Mexico, a region vulnerable to hurricanes, are understaffed after losing more than 600 employees. Miami’s National Hurricane Center is short five specialists. Thirty of the 122 NWS stations no longer have a meteorologist in charge, and as of June 1, seven of those 122 stations will not have enough staff to operate around the clock.
On May 5, the five living former NWS leaders, who served under both Democratic and Republican presidents, wrote a letter to the American people warning that the cuts threaten to bring “needless loss of life.” They urged Americans to “raise your voice” against the cuts.
Trump’s proposed 2026 budget calls for “terminating a variety of climate-dominated research, data, and grant programs” and cutting about 25% more out of NOAA’s funding.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has also suffered dramatic cuts as Trump has said he intends to push disaster recovery to the states. The lack of expertise is taking a toll there, too. Today staff members there said they were baffled after David Richardson, the head of the agency, said he did not know the United States has a hurricane season. (It does, and it stretches from June 1 to the end of November.) Richardson had no experience with disaster response before taking charge of FEMA.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CS87gh8ZT/?mibextid=wwXIfr
We havn’t had any discussion about this lately, so I tried to put a bit of a timeline together. I am happy to provide references once I’m back from my errand.
April 2024 – nearly half of all NWS offices had a 20% vacancy rate—double the rate from ten years prior—indicating a declining workforce throughout the year.
December 2024 NWS had ~4,900 employees
mid-2025 – NWS had lost nearly 600 employees through layoffs and early retirements….(if I’m correct that is about 12.25 percent but does not take into account that NWS was already short staffed)
As of August 2025
* Total departures: The NWS lost nearly 600 employees since the beginning of 2025.
* Types of departures: These staff reductions included probationary employees who were fired, as well as more experienced personnel who took early retirement or buyout offers.
* Wider context: The cuts at the NWS were part of a broader “Reduction in Force” effort across its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
* Partial reversal: By August 2025, the NWS had been given permission to begin filling hundreds of the positions (but not all) that were cut earlier in the year.
Impact on operations
The severe staffing shortages led to operational disruptions at several weather forecast offices around the country during the 2025 spring and summer. This included some offices curtailing operations to less than 24 hours a day and reducing critical weather balloon launches. These disruptions raised concerns among weather experts about the agency’s ability to issue accurate forecasts and warnings, particularly heading into hurricane season