The National Weather Service is suspending more weather balloon observations following major staff cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by the Trump administration via Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
The forecasting practice helps scientists gather critical data on temperature, wind speed, humidity, and other factors used to help predict severe storms and continuously difficult-to-forecast tornadoes.
The move has drawn some strong reactions on social media.
“Weather balloon launches are vital for forecasting. They are like a detailed snapshot of what the atmosphere is doing and getting that data back in real-time. Taking away data means less accurate forecasts,” wrote Dakota News Now meteorologist Tyler Roney. “This is a mess.”
“Let’s remove weather balloon launches right before severe weather season, great idea! (said no one ever),” wrote YouTuber and forecaster Max Velocity.
“It’s absolutely insane. More National Weather Service offices are suspending or limiting weather balloon launching due to staffing cuts. This could impact weather modeling, which we don’t need. In the weather world, we need more data, not less,” said Raleigh meteorologist Ethan Clarke.
The announcement came in an email from Office of Observations Surface and Upper Air Division Director Mike Hopkins.
Hopkins said on Thursday that weather balloon observations would be temporarily suspended in Omaha, Nebraska, and Rapid City, South Dakota “until further notice” due to “a lack of Weather Forecast Office staffing.” Both states are in what is known as Tornado Alley, where tornadoes are most frequent.
“Offices will perform special observations as needed,” it said.
The agency also announced the reduction of such observations in another Nebraska city, as well as in cities in Wyoming, Colorado, Michigan, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
Earlier this month, observations were intermittently suspended in New York’s capital city of Albany and Gray, Maine.
“The more data we can feed into our weather models, the more accurate our forecasts. But I can’t speculate on the extent of future impacts,” NOAA Director of Public Affairs Susan Buchanan told The Independent in an email on Friday.
The move comes after the Department of Government Efficiency’s devastating cuts to the agency’s 12,000-person staff in multiple areas, including forecasting.
The major changes are ahead of additional expected layoffs and the start of tornado season, which lasts through June.
As of Wednesday, 234 tornadoes had been spotted nationwide, according to preliminary reports from the Storm Prediction Center. That’s more than the 164 reported tornadoes last year between January and March.
An outbreak last weekend struck 13 states, and severe weather led to the deaths of more than 40 people in Alabama, Arkansas, North Carolina, Missouri, and Mississippi.
Twisters in Missouri killed over a dozen people, and the storm also produced more than 130 wind-driven wildfires that destroyed more than 400 homes in Oklahoma.
In several states that experienced critical fire weather on Tuesday, conditions abruptly changed, resulting in blizzards and hazardous travel.
While a link between tornadoes and climate change remains murky, extreme weather events are more frequent and severe.
NOAA says that the frequency of tornado outbreaks with 16 or more tornadoes on the Enhanced Fujita Scale is increasing. The scale is used to assign a tornado a “rating” based on estimated wind speeds and related damage, with zero being the lowest and five being the highest.
Less than 10 percent of severe thunderstorms produce tornadoes, which makes it tricky to draw firm conclusions about what makes them and how they could be influenced by climate change, according to Harold Brooks, a tornado scientist at the National Severe Storms Laboratory.
“ Numerous complex atmospheric conditions combine to generate a tornado, and researchers are still developing tools to help discern potential human influence from natural variability,” NOAA says. “So far, the majority of research stops short of connecting historical changes in tornado behavior to a warming climate.”
