When viewers tune into their local television station for the weather report, chances are that the forecast they see was made possible by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“NOAA and the National Weather Service — they are the backbone of meteorology for the entire country,” said Ryan Phillips, a meteorologist for NBC 6 and an instructor at the University of Miami.
Through agencies like the National Hurricane Center and the Weather Prediction Center, NOAA collects observational data, runs models, develops forecasts and issues warnings — information that broadcast meteorologists use to create weather forecasts
Those agencies are currently being targeted for cuts by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Governmental Efficiency.
More than 800 NOAA employees were laid off in late February, including National Weather Service meteorologists. A day later, 500 more took a deferred resignation offer. Last week, NOAA reportedly began preparing to lay off another 1,000 employees, or 10% of the agency’s staff.
The cuts concern broadcast meteorologists who say that NOAA produces valuable and life-saving information, which they then deliver to viewers.
“When I do my daily forecasting, I look at all the suites of models, the satellites, the radar imagery. All those types of things are maintained by NOAA,” said CBS News New York meteorologist Tony Sadiku.
Asked how much of the data she relies on for her forecasts comes from NOAA, KQ2 meteorologist Vanessa Alonso said, “Almost all of it.”
Sadiku said that while he does consult a variety of sources, including in-house models from his station, NOAA plays a “critical role,” and the information they gather is more robust than what individual meteorologists can collect. For example, NOAA takes weather balloon measurements twice a day that allow meteorologists to profile a wide swath of the atmosphere instead of relying on ground-level observations. That atmospheric data helps meteorologists understand upper-level patterns, which can influence long-term forecasts.
The cuts at NOAA have already started disrupting some of the agency’s data-collecting functions. The agency has had to temporarily suspend weather balloon launches in parts of Alaska, New York and Maine due to staffing shortages.
NOAA spokesperson Susan Buchanan declined to answer questions about the layoffs, citing a policy against discussing “internal personnel and management matters.” But she wrote in an email that NOAA remains “dedicated to its mission.”
“We continue to provide weather information, forecasts and warnings pursuant to our public safety mission,” Buchanan wrote.
Several broadcast meteorologists said they haven’t yet felt any effects from DOGE’s cuts in their-day-to-day work. But they have heard from staff within the agencies, where “morale is exceptionally low, and the uncertainty is exceptionally high,” as Phillips put it.
“The models are still being run. The forecasts are still being produced. The watches and warnings are still being issued,” Phillips said. “But what’s happening now is there’s been such a downward pressure on offices to do more with less, and at some point, there’ll be a breaking point where services can’t be provided.”
The cuts come just as the country is entering severe weather season, which is “concerning,” Sadiku said. Over the weekend, more than 42 people died after severe storms and tornadoes broke out across several states. The spring often marks peak tornado season for much of the Midwest and Southeast, and hurricane season starts in June.
Sadiku noted that the changing climate has led to rising sea levels and more extreme weather, raising the stakes.
During severe weather, broadcast meteorologists are especially dependent on NOAA. Generally, the National Weather Service, not individual news outlets, determines the criteria for what is considered “severe.” In the days leading to a weather event, NOAA will issue special outlooks, watches and warnings.
“When there’s adverse weather, there’s an understood hierarchy that the National Weather Service is in charge and tasked with issuing lifesaving and property-saving warnings,” Phillips said. “And then we are on the back end to broadcast those and to advise the public of them and to explain them.”
As part of his rationale for DOGE’s sweeping cuts, Musk has argued that the country needs to shift people from “low to negative productivity jobs in government to high productivity jobs in the private sector.” But meteorologists question whether targeting NOAA will actually reduce governmental inefficiencies and save money.
In a public statement, the American Meteorological Society wrote, “Estimates of the value of weather and climate information to the U.S. economy exceed $100 billion annually, roughly 10 times the investment made by U.S. taxpayers through the federal agencies involved in weather-related science and services.”
There doesn’t exist any singular operation in the private sector that can replace the National Weather Service’s current operation, Phillips said.
“(The National Weather Service) works so well that it operates in the background, and we don’t think about it,” Phillips said. “But now’s the time to think about it and consider the work that’s done here and why that’s valuable to us as a society, our safety, our well-being and also our economy.”
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