NOAA
April.
Instead, the administration’s spending plan would end the development of extended forecasts, limit observations that determine global climate patterns such as El Niño, kill arctic studies, shutter one of two tsunami alert centers and cut key research areas on tornadoes, ocean mapping and hurricanes.
“This budget would ensure that NOAA and the National Weather Service become secondor third-tier weather forecasting enterprises frozen in the early 2000s,” said David Titley, a meteorology professor at Pennsylvania State University and former chief operating officer at NOAA under the Obama administration. “It will make us more vulnerable and less prepared to face extreme weather in a changing and never-experienced climate.”
One key concern is a $26 million cut to reduce atmospheric samples that go into weather forecasting models. Another worry is a $139 million reduction to the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, or OAR. That’s about 27 percent less than what the office got in the previous budget.
Ben Kirtman, professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School, said he believes OAR was targeted for reductions because it’s viewed as NOAA’s “climate component.”
“I view the budget as a way of setting priorities,” he said. “There’s no question that the philosophy will infiltrate the final budget.”
The budget, released in May, came the same month a federal report reiterated long-standing questions about the toll of staff vacancies in the 24-hour NWS forecasting stations.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office’s study on empty NWS seats said the vacancy rate increased from 5 percent in 2010 to 11 percent in 2016. Open meteorologist positions increased 57 percent between 2014 and 2016 from 98 openings to 154.
With fewer people taking on more work, some employees told federal auditors they worked 20 consecutive days to fill shifts and didn’t have time to complete training on new forecasting products, including those used to predict tropical cyclones and their potential impacts.
“I heard they were moving forward with this storm surge information and no one had any training on it,” said Bill Hopkins, executive vice president of the National Weather Service Employees Organization. “Our people are burning out. They are tired. We have some people working 100 hours per pay period (two weeks) to make sure the mission is completed.”
This season marks the first time the National Hurricane Center will issue watches and warnings for deadly storm surge beyond an experimental basis. The alerts will be similar to hurricane watches and warnings in which a watch signals life-threatening storm surge is possible in 48 hours and a warning is issued 36 hours out.
The GAO report notes that “officials in two National Weather Service regional headquarters were concerned about the long-term effects of vacancies on forecasting skills.”
Nationwide, there are 122 local forecasting offices with two meteorologists on duty at all times. Florida has six offices that have a total of eight vacancies, including one in Miami, according to the NWS employees union. Miami’s situation has improved since early 2016 when there were five vacancies.
Still, it’s not just local offices that have seats to fill.
Other weather-related positions currently open include top-level jobs: National Hurricane Center director, FEMA director and