In recent years, wildfires, tornadoes and hurricanes have taken a toll on areas across the U.S., and budget cuts might impact a key tool used to mitigate damage from these natural disasters.
Chris Vagasky, meteorologist and research program manager at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, joined Audacy this week to discuss how these National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration cuts could change hurricane and wildfire warnings.
“It really is concerning,” he told KCBS Radio’s Holly Quan. “You know, the National Hurricane Center had its best ever forecast for hurricane season last year. And we were able to do that because of good staffing, good funding to allow for research into new hurricane models and new forecasting techniques, and the observations that allow us to provide good forecasts, including weather balloon launches, hurricane hunters... so cutting staffing, cutting funding, cutting the tools to issue really good forecasts makes us concerned that the forecasts may not be as accurate this year.”
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, NOAA has experienced “significant staff reductions” since President Donald Trump’s term began earlier this year. With Trump’s new administration came the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) headed by his multi-billionaire ally Elon Musk, a project that resulted in cuts across different federal government agencies.
Additionally, the CFR said that proposed budget cuts are expected to impact NOAA’s core functions, including ocean monitoring, regional and coastal planning, climate research, and weather forecasting. As of this month, the staffing cuts have already reduced weather balloon data collection and more.
“We’ve seen a lot. We’ve seen hundreds of people that work at the national weather service that have taken early retirement or buyouts or have been let go,” said Vagasky. “And that’s resulted in several forecast offices that are no longer operating 24 hours a day. We’ve seeing around a dozen weather balloon sites that are not launching twice a day weather balloons as they normally do.”
While these disruptions are happening, KCBS noted that wildfire season is ramping up in California, where blazes already ravaged parts of the Los Angeles area this year. Along the Gulf Coast, residents are also bracing for an active hurricane season.
“Federal forecasters today warned everyone to get ready for what’s expected to be a busy hurricane season,” WWL reported last week.
“Right now, the hurricane center is fully staffed and during significant weather events,” Vagasky told Quan. “The weather service offices are fully staffed. But what that leads to is a lot of overwork of the forecasters. And there’s concern that overworking the forecasters could lead to fatigue and lead to worse forecast. And then, of course, missing the balloon launches reduces the amount of data available to have good forecast.”
Cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency have experts concerned too, he added. Previously, Audacy also reported on the impact of NOAA cuts on translated alerts.