"A lot of the weather forecast offices now are not operating at full complement of staff," said the former lead of NOAA.
time.com
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which houses the NWS, is among the agencies that have
experienced mass layoffs under the Trump Administration, with firings of probationary employees starting just weeks after Trump returned to the White House.
In May, the
former directors of the NWS published an open letter to “the American people,” warning that Trump’s cuts leave “the nation’s official weather forecasting entity at a significant deficit—down more than 10% of its staffing—just as we head into the busiest time for severe storm predictions like tornadoes and hurricanes.”
The authors of the letter highlighted their fears, saying: “Our worst nightmare is that weather forecast offices will be so understaffed that there will be needless loss of life. We know that’s a nightmare shared by those on the forecasting front lines—and by the people who depend on their efforts.”
Rick Spinrad, the former administrator of NOAA,
has addressed the current concerns, saying that while many of the weather forecast offices are not currently operating with a full staff, it's too soon to tell if that impacted how the floods were forecast and dealt with.
"A lot of the weather forecast offices now are not operating at full complement of staff, which means that you're really putting an extra burden on these folks. I don't know how much that was a factor in what happened in Texas this weekend," he said on Saturday.
"Without research, without staff to do the work, we can assume that the predictions and not just hurricanes—tornadoes, floods, drought, wildfires, tsunamis, for that matter—are undoubtedly going to degrade. And that means that people's ability to prepare for these storms will be compromised."
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