Excerpt:
Extra-hot oceans could spawn monster storms. Researchers worry that cuts at the agency will interrupt the flow of data for forecasts.
With towns and cities in the southeastern United States still reeling from hurricanes that hit last year, scientists are now releasing their forecasts for what could unfold in the hurricane season that starts in less than two months. Colorado State University is predicting nine hurricanes in 2025, four of which could spin up into major strength, while AccuWeather is forecasting up to 10. Both are predicting an above-average season similar to last year’s, which produced monster storms like Helene. That hurricane inundated swaths of the U.S., killing 249 people and causing $79 billion in damage across seven states.
The Trump administration’s slashing of jobs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, then, is coming at a dangerous time, experts say, as the agency generates a stream of data essential to creating hurricane forecasting models. Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has eliminated hundreds of positions at NOAA as part of Musk’s stated aim of cutting $1 trillion from the federal budget. Last week, news broke that the administration was proposing to cut NOAA’s overall budget by 25 percent, with plans to eliminate funding for the agency’s research arm.
NOAA and its various divisions, like the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center, are the ones collecting and processing the data that weather apps like AccuWeather use for their daily forecasts. Hurricane forecasters also rely on data coming from a range of government-owned instruments: real-time measurements of ocean temperatures from a network of buoys and satellites and wind speeds from weather balloons. Those readings help scientists predict what the conditions leading up to hurricane season might say about the number of storms that could arrive this summer and their potential intensity.
All those NOAA instruments require people to maintain them and others to process the data. Though Klotzbach says he hasn’t had any issues accessing the data when running his seasonal forecast model, scientists like him are worried that losing those agency staffers to cost-cutting efforts will disrupt the stream of information just as hurricane season is getting going. The National Weather Service is already reducing its number of weather balloon launches. And on Wednesday, the New York Times reported that due to severe shortages of meteorologists and other employees, the National Weather Service is preparing for fewer forecast updates. (The National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center did not return requests to comment for this story.)
The seasonal forecasts coming out now help to raise awareness in hurricane hotspots like the Gulf Coast, said Xubin Zeng, director of the Climate Dynamics and Hydrometeorology Center at the University of Arizona. But as the start of hurricane season approaches on June 1 and NOAA loses staff, researchers are worried that their shorter-term forecasts — the ones that alert the public to immediate dangers — could suffer, a result that would endanger American lives.
“Now we are nervous if those data will be provided — and will be provided on time — from NOAA,” Zeng said. “We are thinking about what kind of backup plans we need to have for our early-June prediction..”
