At Last! Good News Pertaining to the National Weather Service

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NWS Headquarters

After all of the pain and angst, there is -- finally -- good news for the National Weather Service and its people. 

The News


President Trump’s budget for the fiscal year 2026 (which begins October 1, 2025) fully funds the National Weather Service (NWS) at 2024 levels, plus they will be receiving some additional funding regarding computer modeling. My understanding is that many of the people laid-off will be offered their jobs back and weather balloons will go back to normal. 

 

The budget keeps the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) permanently closed with some tornado and other weather forecast research moved to the NWS. The OAR hurricane group was quite productive and played a direct role in the improvement in accuracy of hurricane path forecasts and, more recently, much better forecasts of hurricanes’ occasional rapid intensification. I hope it will be able to continue as is. 

 

Unfortunately, while I have no opinion as to the water side of OAR, my observation is that the rest of the atmospheric side of OAR has not been as productive and trying something new is a good idea. Dr. Cliff Mass and others believe that development of new and much better weather forecast models is something universities can do better than OAR. Looks like they will get their chance. OAR's budget for climate change research was ten times what they spent on weather forecasting. 

 


Comments


NOAA needed change. It was fat and politicized. I am hoping we are past the pork barrel grants for pet global warming projects while NWS field office infrastructure was/is falling apart. Simply filling a field forecaster vacancy was taking months, not weeks. 

 

That said, the changes pertaining to the National Weather Service have been handled poorly by the Trump Administration and, in some cases, by NWS management. Too much unnecessary pain has been inflicted. If you were not convinced that we need a National Disaster Review Board before, I hope you are now. Had this been aviation, the President and his administration (plus Congress) would have had the impartial NTSB for advice. Nothing like that exists in the atmospheric sciences. 

 

Finally, there is the media: if there was ever a story where anti-Trump bias “trumped” facts, it was this topic. Eliminating jobs at a New Jersey research lab (while an unfortunate personal crisis for the people involved) has nothing to do with making today’s forecast for Chicago or Los Angeles better or worse. But most news stories seemed determined to convince you otherwise. 

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