By Meteorologist Joe Martucci
Consider 164 endangered or threatened species conserved and recovered, 47 rebuilt fish stocks since 2000 and 1.5 million forecasts and warnings each year – that’s just some of the scope of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is part of the United States Department of Commerce.
Between layoffs, buyouts and early retirements, over 2,400 NOAA employees have departed from the agency since February. It represents a combined 27,000 years of experience, according to DaNa Carlis, director at NOAA. This is part of the fallout from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)’s cost-cutting crusade.
I’ve been asked more than a few times what my thoughts are on this. I don’t work for NOAA, I never have. However, I have friends that do, mainly at the National Weather Service, probably the most popular arm of NOAA. Two friends no longer work for NOAA as a result of what has happened over the past few months.
There’s also the elephant in the room – the politics. I ask you to ask yourselves, how would you feel if Kamala Harris, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., or Joe Biden had done this? I also remind you that Congress, not the president, is given the power of the purse.
Like climate change, there are questions about the facts, and then there are questions about how to feel or not feel about them. I do the first part. You all motivate me to talk and write about the weather every single day. It’s tremendous.
With all of that being said, let’s break it down.
The facts
Roughly 20% of NOAA’s nearly 13,000 employees have left since the end of February. That breaks down to the following:
About 1,000 probationary employees – those who held their current job for less than two years, per USA Today. That also includes those who worked with NOAA for decades, but just earned a promotion; 500 employees who took a voluntary buyout, per The New York Times, and an additional 1,029 workers in mid-March, according to USA Today.
Our local National Weather Service office, which is located in Mount Holly, Burlington County, and was located at Atlantic City International Airport as recently as the mid-1990s, did not have layoffs. They provide us with human-curated forecasts, public outreach and, perhaps most importantly, weather watches, warnings as well as advisories.
In offices where there have been reductions, there have been fewer public outreach events. There has been less ability to conduct meteorological research outside of forecasting and, in a worst-case scenario, the Goodland, Kansas National Weather Service office temporarily stepped away from 24-hour coverage.
Around-the-clock coverage is crucial. Even on “quiet” weather days, something like wildfire, air pollution, tornadoes, or tsunamis may occur. NWS meteorologists are there to account for that around the clock, not to mention phone calls from your local or county government, or any member of the public.
In the United States, and our territories, weather balloon launches have been suspended in Kotzebue, Alaska; Omaha, Neb.; Rapid City, S.D.; Albany, N.Y. and Gray, Maine. Weather balloons are our eyes in the sky, providing crucial data up to 50,000 feet high. Launched twice daily, they collect data too high to be observed by weather stations. Temperatures, dew point, pressure, wind speed and wind direction are all included in this.
This is still a small percentage of the balloon launches. However, every single forecast weather model is only as good as the data being put into it. High-resolution balloon launches are a key part of this. Compared to last year, there is a large coverage gap in the Northern Great Plains and New England.
The National Aeronautical and Space Administration, which needs highly accurate and precise weather forecasts for launching rockets into space, says that 18% of their observations come from weather balloon launches.
Hurricane season starts June 1. The National Hurricane Center, a division of the National Weather Service in Miami, Fla., just set a new record for prediction accuracy from 12 hours out, down to 5 days out. Staff involved in the Hurricane Analysis and Forecast System, critical for improving track and intensity forecasts, were cut. A few hurricane hunter crew members were impacted, too.
The entire external affairs team for NOAA was laid off. They are the people I speak with for interviews, data and more. Scientists working on artificial intelligence climate prediction were also let go. That includes Zack Labe, who is a good follow on social media.
The forecast
In fiscal year 2024, NOAA had a $6.8 billion budget. The proposed 2025 Trump administration NOAA budget is down to $6.6 billion, and the administration proposes a reduction of $1.67 billion in NOAA’s fiscal year 2026 budget. Funding from NOAA ultimately trickles down to the National Weather Service budget.
The administration’s proposal suggests ending a variety of research grants to individuals, organizations and data related to climate. Cuts to grants such as “Policy Experience in Equity, Climate and Health,” are mentioned, too. This also asks for a $8 billion cut to the satellite program.
If you read the full description of cuts, it doesn’t specifically mention cuts to weather operations. While climate and weather are separate, they are under the same umbrella, no pun intended. It’s like how you need flour and water, two different items, to make bread. To get our clearest possible understanding of the environment, you need both.
According to NOAA’s “passback” document from a few weeks ago, funding for the National Weather Service would revert back to 2024’s level. The proposal calls for moving the Space Weather Prediction Center to the Department of Homeland Security. They are the ones that provide data on the aurora borealis, including the serene scene we had at the Jersey Shore from the Northern Lights last October.
Outside of the National Weather Service, but within NOAA, no funding would be provided for Coastal Zone Management Grants, which helps coastal towns and nonprofits address coastal flooding and erosion. The National Coastal Resilience Fund would be eliminated, which supports the restoration and enhancement of natural infrastructure to protect our shore.
The next generation of weather satellites, named Geostationary Extended Observers (GenXO), would be cancelled. However, the document does maintain that a new upgrade to satellites is needed in the 2030s. An increase of $46.5 million is proposed to fund low earth orbit satellites, such as the ones that collect weather data at the Earth’s poles.
This is the Trump administration proposal. Congress will then review this and make adjustments that work for Congress and the president.
The NWS has been understaffed for years. Even before 2025, the National Weather Service offices had a number of vacancies across the United States. Now, roughly 50% of the 122 weather forecasts are at least 20% short of fully being staffed.
The National Weather Service has reorganized before, most recently in the 1990s. That moved the local office at Atlantic City International Airport to its current location in Mt. Holly.
You can make the argument that the NWS, and its parent NOAA reorganization, need cuts to reduce the federal debt, which stands at $36.8 trillion on May 5. You can make the argument that if the government needs to conduct reductions in force and that there should be a master plan to account for this.
You can make the argument that NOAA needed to stay at its current levels or maybe even double in size. That’s not the purpose of this column.
However, saying “my phone app tells me the weather so we don’t need NOAA” is not an answer. As Marshall Shepherd, former president of the American Meteorological Society wrote in Forbes, that’s like saying you don’t need potato farmers because you can get french fries from McDonald’s. NOAA is the source that provides data to weather apps, and to your friendly, local meteorologists, too.
Furthermore, the argument that AI advances mean we don’t need all of these NOAA jobs is not true either. AI can’t conserve endangered species, or rebuild fish stocks on their own. They certainly don’t have the internal knowledge the Mt. Holly office has of our coastline as they issue weather alerts.
The reduction in force at NOAA is a decision based around dollars and power.
Joe Martucci, a Certified Broadcast Meteorologist and Digital Meteorologist, is the President and Director of Meteorology for Cup A Joe Weather and Drone. You can connect with him at cupajoe.live.
