President Donald Trump’s slimming down of the federal government is having ripple effects on how the United States’s weather agencies operate ahead of hurricane season.
In Trump’s second term, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has faced budget cuts and staffing reductions, while the National Weather Service has dealt with personnel shortages. A budget blueprint for 2026 released by the president earlier this month would cut NOAA’s spending by over 20%.
The cuts primarily affect the forecasting agency’s research arm, which the administration argues is “not aligned with Administration policy-ending ‘Green New Deal’ initiatives.”
But David Stensrud, the president of the American Meteorological Society, told the Washington Examiner that NOAA’s research labs are “foundational for how the weather service operates.”
“If you look at our computer models that we use right now in forecast operations, those models basically are developed and maintained by NOAA research,” Stensrud said. “And so if those laboratories go away, then our computer models are not going to be updated.”
On Thursday, the weather agency announced that its “Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters” database, which tracks the most costly storms, would “be retired.” A banner at the top of the database’s landing page says that NOAA will no longer update the data due to “evolving priorities, statutory mandates, and staffing changes.”
The announcement from the agency is the latest in a series of changes that weather agencies have undergone in Trump’s administration.
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Trump, with the help of the Elon Musk-backed Department of Government Efficiency, has been paring back federal contracts and agencies in an effort to save taxpayer dollars and root out priorities from the past administration, such as DEI and the green climate agenda. The administration contends that changes and layoffs are needed to scale back a bureaucracy that has gotten too big.
As a result, hundreds of NOAA employees have been fired, rehired, and fired again as part of DOGE’s efforts to cut waste, fraud, and abuse within the federal government.
At NOAA, about 880 probationary employees were terminated on Feb. 27, and then about 500 employees took a deferred resignation offer from the Trump administration on Feb. 28, a congressional source previously told the Washington Examiner.
While the NWS, which falls under the NOAA, has not been the direct target of budget cuts, over 300 employees from the agency were expected to take buyouts. Staffing shortages within the agency led to at least a couple of field offices closing or limiting operations.
“Recent terminations within the government workforce for science are likely to cause irreparable harm and have far-reaching consequences for public safety, economic well-being, and the United States’ global leadership,” the American Meteorological Society wrote in a statement posted late last month.
The Atlantic hurricane season starts in the U.S. on June 1. Stensrud told the Washington Examiner that the slimming of NOAA’s operations could lead to gaps in forecast predictions and emergency preparedness.
“It’s certainly possible,” Stensrud said. “NOAA flies the Hurricane Hunter aircraft into hurricanes in the Atlantic, right? And my understanding is that the crews are at, basically, sort of at the minimum threshold, right? They have enough people to operate the aircraft. But a lot of the data collected on the aircraft is actually collected by NOAA research scientists, and so if the research scientists are no longer there, it’s not clear to me that all the data that normally would be collected is going to be collected, and that will impact the hurricane forecast.”
In Omaha, Nebraska, and Rapid City, South Dakota, the weather service temporarily suspended its weather balloon operations, which help the agency gather data to make accurate weather forecasts.
Rep. Mike Flood (R-NE) contended the agency had been suffering a personnel shortfall long before Trump started his second term.
“Under the Biden administration, they were unable to hire for vacant positions at least in the Omaha weather office,” Flood said before explaining that hundreds of NWS employees had also taken the Trump administration’s early buyout retirement offer.
“So when you combine those two things, it presents an immediate staffing issue,” Flood said.
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However, the Nebraska Republican disagreed that there would be any lapse in the U.S.’s ability to deal with severe weather this year as the White House had given the agency temporary authority to “hire employees with the option of replacing them on a permanent basis down the road,” which he called a “very good outcome long term.”
“They have the authority they need to hire. Where there’s change, there’s opportunity. So I think there’s going to be a remodeling of sorts,” Flood said. “But I’m very supportive of the National Weather Service.”
Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC), who represents Asheville, an area that was devastated by Hurricane Helene in 2024, similarly applauded both agencies, saying they “provide invaluable service to our country in so many different ways.”
“Their combined work saved tens of thousands of lives, and so I fully support their mission,” Edwards said. “That said, I believe that every federal agency needs to be thoroughly examined for productivity measurements and looked at for ways that we can improve efficiency with less funding. Our nation’s fiscal health is at risk.”
Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC) conceded budget cuts have an impact but that the ballooning deficit required attention.
“There’s always an impact, but we’re running a $2 trillion deficit every year,” Knott told the Washington Examiner. “We’ve got to make tough choices.”
The Trump administration did restore funding to four regional climate centers that it had previously let expire for another year, according to NOTUS. The outlet reported that the centers were given a temporary spending authority to get their systems back online.
Rep. Deborah Ross (D-NC) said there will “100%” be funding lapses at the local level as a result of the Trump administration’s cutbacks.
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“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And the Trump administration, following the Project 2025 playbook, is putting our people and the property in harm’s way,” Ross told the Washington Examiner.
She said North Carolina is turning into “hurricane alley,” and “we absolutely need all the tools we can to be prepared.”
Samantha-Jo Roth contributed to this report.
