Hold space in your hearts for them, because our safety depends to some extent on their success.
With hurricane season underway and an above-normal activity forecast, some National Weather Service offices like Houston — where as many as 44% of positions are vacant — are operating with staff shortages, prompting concerns about their capacity to monitor future storms.
The shortages stem from federal cuts that slashed roughly 10% of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s workforce and triggered a wave of early retirements. While no staff members from the Houston/Galveston office were laid off, several hundred employees at NOAA, which hosts the National Weather Service, took a voluntary early retirement package.
Among those stepping down: Jeff Evans, longtime meteorologist-in-charge in Houston, who retired after 34 years with the NWS, 10 of those in Texas. He told KPRC Click2Houston that it was “an honor and a privilege” to serve Texas through countless disasters.
The Houston office has 11 vacancies — 44% of its regular staffing.
The NWS provides weather warnings for tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires and floods, and produces river and hydrological outlooks and long-term climate change data. It serves as the forecast of record for many, including TV meteorologists, journalists and researchers, as well as emergency managers, who use it to plan for potential evacuations and rescue coordination during extreme weather events.
Mark Fox, who usually works at the Oklahoma office, has stepped in to help as acting meteorologist-in-charge in Houston. Despite the strain, Fox and other local meteorologists say they’re committed to delivering life-saving forecasts and supporting emergency preparedness.
“We can continue 24/7 with the staff that we have,” Fox said. “If we need to augment staff to kind of help out and give some people a break, we can do that. But the mission is going to be fulfilled.”
[…]
Since the start of the year, the National Weather Service has lost nearly 600 employees due to cuts ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency under the Trump administration. After backlash, earlier this month, 126 positions, including “mission-critical” ones, were approved for hire as exceptions to a federal hiring freeze. Erica Grow Cei, a National Weather Service spokesperson, said these were approved to “stabilize frontline operations” and added that the new hires will fill positions at field offices where there’s “the greatest operational need.”
The nearly 600 employees that NWS has lost in the last six months has been about the same amount the agency lost in the 15 years prior, according to Tom Fahy, the legislative director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization, a union that represents weather service employees.
Fahy called the quick exodus unprecedented, saying it “definitely disrupts the entire staffing requirements for the National Weather Service” in a way previous reductions did not.
Jeff Masters, former NOAA Hurricane Hunter and a meteorologist who writes about extreme weather for Yale Climate Connections, says most of those roles won’t be filled in time to help this hurricane season.
“This was done very inefficiently,” Masters said. “First, all of the probationary employees were fired, then incentives were given to get the most experienced managers out through early retirement. Now they’re trying to do some rehiring, and then it’s just not being done very efficiently.”
Masters said that the local offices have lost critical institutional knowledge and expertise.
Nationwide, reduced staffing has also meant fewer balloon launches, which are essential for collecting upper-atmosphere temperature, humidity and wind speed data critical to accurate storm modeling. A reduction in launches may lead to larger errors in hurricane tracking, says Masters.
Faced with these gaps, offices across the country are lending staff — either in person or virtually — to ensure continuous coverage during major weather events. Fahy said that this is what will keep Texas as whole “in very good shape and ready for hurricane season.”
“It’s kind of like binding hands and helping each other out wherever we can,” said Jason Johnson, hydrologist in charge at the NWS Fort Worth office. “We’ve expanded our training so meteorologists and hydrologists in other regions are ready to support us if needed.”
Despite the cuts, Johnson says Texas NWS offices remain focused on protecting lives and property.
“We’re not expecting any drop in the quality or quantity of information that we provide,” he said.
See here, here, and here for some background. I’m most of the way through watching The Pitt, that HBO show about overworked emergency room doctors and nurses, and the optimism expressed in this story by NWS folks about their ability to handle whatever comes at them despite the insane workload and insufficient managerial support sounds a lot like what the folks at the Pitt would say. I trust their abilities and I’m buoyed by their faith, but we all know they shouldn’t be in this position. When something goes wrong, and sooner or later it will, don’t go blaming them.