Another forecasting toll is scrapped
Experts: Government cuts damage U.S. status as global science leader
By: Dinah Voyles Puler
USA Today
..... The heart-wrenching July 4 [2025] flooding in Texas served as a stark reminder of the importance of accurate and timely weather forecasts.
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As extreme rainfall events grow more intense, such tragedies are expected to increase. Further improvement to forecasts is critical, but meteorologists worry that with the additional cuts planned by the Trump administration, the nation's weather and climate research programs won't be able to keep up.
..... The latest blow was the announcement by the U.S. Navy that it would no longer transmit data from aging satellites past June 30, [2025] roughly 15 months earlier than expected. Later, the department extended the deadline to July31. [2025]
..... Without those satellite images, hurricane forecast accuracy could be compromised say current and former scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Polar researchers, who use the images to measure the extent of sea ice, hope to acquire the same data through a Japanese government satellite instead.
..... In any other year, the satellite snafu might not have gathered much attention. But this summer, [2025] it exacerbates mounting concerns about the accuracy of weather prediction amid contract cancellations staff reductions and other Trump administration efforts to reduce the federal bureaucracy.
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"You can't help taking tools away from people and expect them to get the same result," said Andy Hazelton, a hurricane scientists at the University of Miami. Hazelton had been hire as a NOAA scientist last October [2024] and was dismissed in the Trump administration's widespread agency layoffs.
..... USA today interviewed more than a dozen industry veterans, including a half-dozen former NOAA scientists, as we as independent researchers, who all fear that forecasts for hurricanes and other extreme weather events may become less accurate and that efforts to monitor the warming climate could be disrupted.
..... The flash flood deaths in Texas on Independence Day weekend are not being blamed on poor forecasts, but weather scientists say the tragedy is emblematic of what can happen when forecasts becomes less accurate.
..... They cite several concerning developments, including:
* Hundreds of probationary employees were laid off and incentive packages sent hundreds more to early retirement, creating staffing shortages. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick recently told Congress there's a plan to hire more than 1000 people to fill vacancies in the Nation la Weather Service, but as of July 9, [2025] no
such jobs had been posted on usajobs.gov .
* Contracts have been canceled or caught up in a bottleneck by the new requirement that large agreements must be individually reviewed by a political appointee. For example, a fleet of autonomous ocean-going drones called Saildrones, which helped gather data used in hurricane forecasts, was not deployed this summer [2025] after a contracting issue.
* Short-staffed weather forecast offices limited weather balloon launches. The balloons provide essential atmospheric data used in weather models, such as the balloon in Del Rio, Texas, that warned forecasters of the potential for heavy rain in Texas in early July. [2025]
* Organizers at two conferences for emergency managers and local officials that traditionally feature keynote speeches and training by National Hurricane Center scientists had to scramble when the staffers weren't allowed to attend.
..... The White House did not respond to a request for comment on a list of questions related to this year's [2025] developments.
..... The Texas flooding underscore the well-documented evidence of how a warner Gulf increases the magnitude of rain that falls in the most extreme storms. However, efforts to document and explain the changing climate are being restricted by the Trump administration.
..... The website for the program that has overseen the writing on the congressionally mandate National Climate Assessments every few years for decades vanished with no explanation. The project has been co-managed by NOAA, NASA and other agencies.
..... Hundreds of volunteer scientists who had begun working with federal agencies to complete the next climate assessment were dismissed. The preexisting reports are being moved to the NASA website, but there's no date set for that yet, according to an email from the agency.
..... Additionally, climate.gov a science website that explained climate patterns and research, with roughly a million page views a month this year, [2025] was shut down and redirected to NOAA's main climate page, according to its former staff.
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The staff members housed in the climate office were dismissed.
..... The White House proposed reducing the NOAA budget by 30% and eliminating its Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, which would mean closing its research laboratories and cooperative institutes with universities.
..... Industry veterans say the resulting chaos, combined with similar actions at other agencies, is tarnishing the nation's reputation as a global scientific leader.
..... "We're in uncharted territory,' said Michael Mann, a climate scientists, geophysicist and director of the Center for Science, Sustainability & the Media at the University of Pennsylvania. "I hear it constantly from my colleagues outside the U.S. They're shocked, they're horrified. They can;t believe it.
..... Counties around the world have often looked to the United States for leadership on science, and now, the United States "is going to be left behind," Mann said.
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Scientists who spoke with USA Today freely volunteer that NOAA isn't perfect and could make improvements. But they say the current direction will cost taxpayers billions and risk lives when hurricane forests are inaccurate in temperature and sea levels that have already made some extreme weather events more intense.
..... The growing reports that NOAA and the weather service are being degraded by under-staffing and budget cuts have alarmed some members of Congress, who raised the issues during recent Capitol Hill briefings.