Five former directors of the National Weather Service are warning that additional cuts to the agency’s staffing could lead to unnecessary deaths during severe weather such as tornadoes, wildfires and hurricanes.
“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,” they wrote in an open letter published Friday.
The former directors — who served between 1988 and 2022 — said that between the Trump administration’s cuts to probationary workers and personnel reductions through buyouts, the weather service’s staffing has been reduced by more than 10% during the busiest time for severe storm predictions.
They said they’re also concerned about the Trump administration’s budget request for the next fiscal year, after the administration outlined in a letter to Congress a $1.52 billion proposed cut for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the weather service’s parent agency.
“NWS staff will have an impossible task to continue its current level of services,” they wrote, if further cuts are implemented. “Some forecast offices will be so short-staffed that they may be forced to go to part time services.”
Want to know more about how NWS cuts could cause meteorologists to miss detecting a tornado? Watch Hallie Jackson Now on NBC News Now, today at 5PM EST.
Their outcry against cuts at the weather service, and the NOAA more broadly, shows that the agencies are a political pressure point as the Trump administration seeks to slash the size of government. Meteorologists said cuts to weather service staffing have led to less effective forecasts, which has spurred some bipartisan backlash in Plains states where severe weather claims many lives.
The letter, which was sent to journalists by a publicist and also circulated on social media, was signed by the former weather service directors: Louis Uccellini, Jack Hayes, U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. D.L. Johnson, U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. John J. Kelly Jr. and U.S. Air Force Col. E.W. (Joe) Friday.
They added: “As former directors of the National Weather Service, we know firsthand what it takes to make accurate forecasts happen and we stand united against the loss of staff and resources at NWS and are deeply concerned about NOAA as a whole.”
In a statement, the weather service said it wouldn’t discuss internal personnel and management matters. It acknowledged that it was juggling staffing concerns.
“We continue to provide weather information, forecasts and warnings pursuant to our public safety mission,” the statement said. “The National Weather Service is adjusting some services due to temporary staffing changes at our local forecast offices throughout the country in order to best meet the needs of the public, our partners and stakeholders in each office’s local area. Work is underway to restore services at local forecast offices around the country.”
A spokeperson for the Commerce Department, which oversees NOAA, said that “NOAA does not anticipate any disruptions in services as a result of staff reorganizations and the NWS will continue to meet its mission of ensuring public safety amid critical weather events.”
Forecasts during severe weather last month in Nebraska helped to clarify concerns about the cuts and prompted one congressional Republican to speak out.
On April 17, as thunderstorms threatened Iowa and Nebraska, the weather service forecasting office in Valley, Nebraska, near Omaha, launched a special weather balloon at 3 p.m. to assess the risk from the storms, but it did not launch a regularly scheduled 7 p.m. balloon because of staff cuts.
The Valley office was one of more than 10 sites where the weather service announced it would cancel balloon launches because of staffing shortages.
Independent meteorologists said the 7 p.m. balloon launch near Omaha could have helped forecasters identify the risk of tornadoes sooner. Storms that appeared to be mostly a hail threat in data from the 3 p.m. weather balloon ended up producing six tornadoes that tracked across eastern Nebraska.
After the storm, Rep. Mike Flood, R-Neb., said he took steps to intervene. In an April 25 news conference recorded by NBC-affiliate WOWT in Omaha, he said he learned the Valley office’s staffing had fallen from 13 forecasters to eight, leaving it little choice but to halt weather balloon operations.
After raising the issue, he told reporters he had received a call from the White House agreeing that changes were needed. Soon after, the weather service sent two forecasters to fulfill a temporary assignment at the Valley office.
“We’ve changed the policy across the country, and these temporary duty assignments are available for forecasters to go to all the other understaffed weather stations,” Flood said, adding that temporary assignments could become permanent and that weather forecasting offices would be allowed to do some new hiring.
He said he planned to introduce legislation to classify forecasters as public safety workers, a measure that would likely exempt them from federal buyouts and other staff-cutting policies.
“They are clearly public safety. And that’s something that we need to do in Congress,” Flood said.
Rick Spinrad, former NOAA administrator under then-President Joe Biden, said the weather service was not a bloated target for budgetary cuts.
“The weather service is costing every American 1 cent per day,” Spinrad said.
The staffing cuts have affected more than just weather balloon launches. Last month, the weather service office in Sacramento, California, sent a memo to local media partners saying that it would reduce overnight staffing and stop answering public phones, among other changes.
Friday, one of the former directors, said he was particularly concerned that additional cuts could further stress overnight staffing.
“The worst case scenario we could have if this situation continues would be the development of a severe storm that would start after midnight,” he said, adding that overnight decisions by the weather service and local emergency planners could be the difference between sirens waking people up to a danger, such as a tornado. “We have holes throughout the weather service now that are not well thought out.”
