As tornadoes and severe weather hit this spring, some National Weather Service offices have halted around-the-clock shifts, a staple of the agency for the past few decades
That includes one in Cheyenne, Wyo. The staff is currently down by almost half because of the federal hiring freeze and funding cuts, so it’s shutting down operations between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.
However, according to Tom Fahy, legislative director of the National Weather Service Employees Organization, “services to the American public [are] not going to be ignored.”
Fahy said other offices, like ones in Riverton, Wyo. and Denver, could pick up some slack and issue alerts and warnings. But that means that workers may be stretched across the region. They already spend long hours watching monitors with weather models, radars and satellite information, and they can get tired.
“More communities will be in harm's way if we're not able to hire more meteorologists, to get people into the system,” he said.
A ‘Band-Aid solution’
Across the country, Fahy said the Trump administration has approved 155 employees temporarily transferring to offices in need, but he said he sees this as a “Band-Aid solution,” since the National Weather Service has lost about 600 workers in the last 90 days.
That’s about the same number it lost in the last 15 years, Fahy said.
“The weather service at this particular time is simply doing triage,” he said. “It's like battlefield medicine.”
A Kansas office, which forecasts for part of eastern Colorado, has also shut down overnight, according to Fahy, in addition to ones in Alaska, California, Kentucky and Michigan.
Kim Doster, communications director for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said in a statement that the weather service “continues to meet its core mission of providing life-saving forecasts, warnings, and decision support services to the public, our partners and stakeholders.”
“In the near term, NWS has updated the service level standards for its weather forecast offices to manage impacts due to shifting personnel resources,” Doster continued. “These revised standards reflect the transformation and prioritization of mission-essential operations, while supporting the balance of the operational workload for its workforce.”
Weather balloons fly again
As the agency adjusts to having fewer staff members, weather balloons have been one item on the chopping block.
In mid-March, some balloon flights went down to once a day in Wyoming and were cut altogether in western South Dakota due to staffing shortages. But now, thanks to temporary employees and shifts in resources, those balloons are back to flying twice a day, according to a NOAA database.
Fahy said the balloons help forecasters know what’s happening in several states.
“It's funny, but you know, the balloon launches that we're launching in Wyoming will actually tell us what's happening in Kentucky,” he explained.
Despite the use of advanced technology, like satellites, balloons are still the best way to get solid data about the lower layer of the atmosphere, under 10,000 feet, where storms brew, according to Mike Nelson, a retired TV meteorologist in Colorado.
“This is critical, very potentially life-saving information,” Nelson said back in March.
Flights in Grand Junction, Colo., are still reduced to once a day, but the acting meteorologist in charge, Jennifer Stark, said they’ll likely be restored to twice daily in late July with the arrival of temporary employees.
She said the office hasn’t seen big impacts from the reduced flights and that it can supplement the data in other ways. It’s currently prioritizing severe weather, fire and aviation warnings.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
