Former Weather Service Leaders Warn Staffing Cuts Could Lead to ‘Loss of Life’

Five former directors of the National Meteorological Service have tasks of the unusual passage to sign in the warning of the letters that cuts the organization by the Trump administration can soon endanger lives.

“NWS staff will have an impossible task to continue their current level of services,” they write in the letter, dated Friday. “Our worst nightmare is that time prognosis crimes will have so much staff that there will be an unnecessary loss of lives.”

Hundreds of weather service employees, or about 10 percent of the personnel of the total agencies, have been dismissed or accepted purchase sacrifices since President Trump begged his second mandate, according to the letter.

The letter indicates that next week is “the busiest moment for predictions of severe storms such as tornadoes and hurricanes”, and points to a wide range of activities that depend on precise forecasts: “Airplanes cannot fly without the Okeher rapporteurs; storms and prognostic ships; high seas;

“Perhaps the most important thing,” they write, “NWS issues all warnings, hurricane warnings, flood warnings, extreme conditions of forest fires and other information that make extreme climatic events.”

The loss of the staff is already affecting the local forecast offices, said Joe Friday, who directed the weather from 1988 to 1997 and signed the letter. “You have offices that cannot mount their balloons launch schedules,” he said. “You have officers who cannot Mintain the 24 -hour operations facade.” The more than 100 meteorological services offices throughout the country have traditionally launched at least two balloons a day to collect data that help produce forecast models.

In an interview, Dr. Friday said she was worried that meteorologists who stretch more and more thin will be left to broadcast warnings in severe weather with less delivery time. “There will be fewer people who keep their eyes on what is happening,” he said.

In addition to Dr. Friday, the letter was signed by Louis Uccellini, who directed the weather from 2013 to 2022; Jack Hayes, who directed it from 2007 to 2012; DL Johnson, who directed it from 2004 to 2007; and John J. Kelly Jr., who directed it from 1998 to 2004.

The weather service refused to comment on the letter on Friday.

The agency can soon face another challenge. On Friday, the White House published a budget proposal that includes a cut of $ 1.5 billion in funds for the Maternal Agency of the Meteorological Service, the Oceanic and Atmospheric National Administration, which has already faced the loss of hundreds of employees.

The budget proposal does not describe specific reductions in the funds for the weather service, but the reduction of the NOAA research arm could a deep effect on the ability of meteorologists to improve prognosis techniques. “Given the interconnection of all NOAA parts, there will also be impacts on the weather forecast,” says the letter.

Proponed cuts in NOAA echoed a plan established in the 2025 project, a policy play book published by the Heritage Conservative Foundation in 2023 that described the agency as “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.” He asked NOAA to “break” and that the weather service is privatized.

Dr. Friday said that he was concerned that a forced decrease in the precision of the products of the weather service could annually sacrifice an pretext for the privatization of agencies.

“If you want to basically eliminate an organization, the personnel policies that are happening at this time under Doge are likely to be seen with the best way to do it,” said Dr. Friday. “You destroy the organization from the inside.”