Put your TDS aside for five minutes and focus on the issue at hand instead of turning this into a political thread. And then tomorrow take a little time to educate yourself. I'm not doing this tonight.
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NOAA/NWS Budget Cuts
- Thread starter Mike S
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- Norman, OK
This is the last I will speak on the matter in this thread, but as a final remark, Matt Lanza is not someone who would make something about this up. He's one of the best. Don't just claim something is false just because it doesn't agree with your politics.
Anti-Freeze
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I lived many years in Houston. He was always a long track political blowhard, just itching to mouth off his dumb opinions. Frequently wrong on forecasts, too.
He is absolutely someone who would spin a big political myth out of something minor, because "The ends justifies the means."
It has nothing to do with politics for me. I'm no trump fan. The assertion that a tore wasn't issued tonight because there was a shortage of interns and probationary employees in Jackson, MO is patently false. Staffing at NWS offices has been an issue long before trump was elected. People here who know the truth...they know. We need to stop hijacking important breaking weather threads to take political pot shots.
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The truth of this situation is important, and the entire conversation could've happened without insults. NWS Jackson is understaffed, but the offensive remark was questioning the office's competence as a result of those cuts. As long as we're pointlessly speculating about why a Tor E wasn't issued, I'd say it was because velocities didn't reach the required threshold, or size. It's not like they weren't watching that cell relentlessly like the rest of us. I'd also bet they wish the weather community was more aware of how undermanned and overworked they are, and there's no harm in spreading that info... because it's the truth...
Some more truth. NOAA has been forced to cut tracking for billion dollar disasters, and FEMA has also been mostly DOGEd, so the true financial costs of these storms will remain a mystery. None of this info is political, it's reality, and it's important for anyone who cares about keeping communities safe and supported during weather disasters to be aware of it.
Some more truth. NOAA has been forced to cut tracking for billion dollar disasters, and FEMA has also been mostly DOGEd, so the true financial costs of these storms will remain a mystery. None of this info is political, it's reality, and it's important for anyone who cares about keeping communities safe and supported during weather disasters to be aware of it.
NorthGaWeather
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- Canton, GA
I could write a novel on the first paragraph, but I will spare everyone. Instead I’ll write one about the second paragraph. It’s not political.
I wanted to point out that even though FEMA is facing significant cuts, financial costs are still being tracked. Local EMAs still do damage assessments. NWS offices still do damage assessments. Local EMAs that are doing their job will get a very realistic accounting of the financial impacts to their community whether from damages or response costs. They’re also trying to hit their county per capita indicator (PCI) so they can qualify for a potential federal major disaster declaration. The state also has a PCI that must be met before this can happen. The main issue that counties may face in the future is that the statewide PCI may be doubled-quadrupled. This would result in less major disaster declarations for “small disasters”, meaning no IA/PA declarations and little to no federal dollars coming in. For example in Georgia, the current statewide PCI is ~20 million. But if that number was ~80 million, you wouldn’t see many “small disasters”, aka Idalia and Debby, be declared and money become available for Public Assistance categories.
WaryWarren
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- Minneapolis, MN
Andyhb vindication
I moved a few posts to this thread a few moments ago that were in a live event thread. Please keep them here.
Anti-Freeze
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LOL, no. Quite the opposite. He, poohbah, cloud avatar and I think one other (not all of the political posts from that ongoing tornadoes thread were moved over here) started repeatedly posting an opportunistic political myth during an outbreak that turned out to be lies. Couldn't wait, just had to politicize an ongoing event before the facts could be checked. (My favorite was the guy who upvoted all those accusatory political posts, then when there was pushback that it wasn't true, starts yelling "Keep politics off this thread!" LOL)
So now we have proof that NWS Jackson was fully staffed that night, and there was plenty of warning for Somerset and London (28 and 40 minutes, respectively). From the NWS and confirmed by the Democrat Kentucky governor here:
Further, Rebekah Jones (and her mesoscale "news" tweets) is a discredited political hack, failed congressional candidate (lost to the clown Matt Gaetz), and fake whistleblower who was fired from the FL Dept of Health for, among other things, false claims, abusing her position, and unauthorized use of the state's emergency alert system (faced with prosecution, she admitted guilt). Similar to the NWS Jackson controversy, she made bogus accusations that said what the Democrats wanted to believe and thus initially got much attention and traction, only later to be proven false. What's the saying, "A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth gets its shoes on".) Temporarily suspended from Twitter (the year before Musk bought it) for 'platform manipulation'. Scandals regarding topics like Covid-19, Ron DeSantis, climate change, etc. She's basically a left equivalent of Laura Loomer. Both know how to make money shoveling political bull that people want to believe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebekah_Jones
This will be my only post here, not really interested in the typical circular arguing. But please, stop politicizing the outbreak threads. If there are a half dozen posts in one direction, someone is going to make a refutation post. Keep it in the Poli forum instead.
there's no andyhb vindication. Blaming Trump for a TORE not being issued in Kentucky discredits anyone from ever being taken seriously by anyone else about anything. Posting some local rag's news story quoting a guy who no longer has an intern working for him at NWS is sour grapes, not fact, and certainly not vindication. Posting an article by Rebekah Jones is embarrassing.
We have to be better than this. Like I said at the time, I'm no Trump fan. He wasn't my choice. But every time there's an incident at the airport, I'm not going to rush to blame Trump because DOGE eliminated some redundancy at ATC. Every time someone is impacted by a Tornado, I'm not going to rush to blame Trump because DOGE eliminated some bloat inside of NWS. I'm not going to do those things because I'm not a piece of garbage.
These people are the same people who blame Trump for the political discourse in this country. The height of hypocrisy.
My post should not have been moved from that thread. Anyone, and I mean anyone who will use a tragedy to try to score stupid political points should be called out for it and anyone who disagrees is part of the problem.
We have to be better than this. Like I said at the time, I'm no Trump fan. He wasn't my choice. But every time there's an incident at the airport, I'm not going to rush to blame Trump because DOGE eliminated some redundancy at ATC. Every time someone is impacted by a Tornado, I'm not going to rush to blame Trump because DOGE eliminated some bloat inside of NWS. I'm not going to do those things because I'm not a piece of garbage.
These people are the same people who blame Trump for the political discourse in this country. The height of hypocrisy.
My post should not have been moved from that thread. Anyone, and I mean anyone who will use a tragedy to try to score stupid political points should be called out for it and anyone who disagrees is part of the problem.
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Opportunistic political myth? Is the current state of the NWS in this country worse than it was before? Yes or no? Jackson fortunately did have the staffing available to handle the 5/16 event (the whole debate concerning tornado emergency vs. not is peanuts in the grand scheme of things), but they never should've been put in that position in the first place. Hell, why does this thread even exist in the first place? The NWS should be hiring to fill these vacant positions not creating further vacancies. There are offices that have had to stop 24/7 operations (e.g. Goodland, Pendleton) directly because of the hiring freezes and dismissal of probationary employees. That is not myth, that is fact. So is the attempted deletion of the research arm that works in tandem with the operational side to advance the science.
Kentucky NWS office in Jackson was staffed amid severe weather, despite shortages
The National Weather Service Forecast Office in Jackson, Kentucky, was fully staffed overnight as tornadoes descended on London and Somerset, despite staffing shortages.
www.lpm.org
What you have to understand is that all of this is putting additional, unneeded stress and fatigue on those working in the NWS, and that can lead to mistakes. Jackson did very well to avoid these mistakes, but it might not always be the same, especially in this political climate. Like Cassell said, failure is not an option, but the chances of failure increase when the work environment becomes uncertain. This is the same at any workplace. This, of course, carries through to hurricane season.
I am just thinking out loud here, but is it not possible, with today's technology, to have regional command centers instead of the offices we have now? An East and West center? Maybe 4 or 5 centers? I like having mets with knowledge of the local area, but in the year 2025 maybe we could at least consider doing things a different way.
Slashing NOAA budgets with little thought as things have been done recently certainly is not the way, but I bet we could spend less and still provide the proper coverage. Hopefully some of the savings could be put towards filling in radar holes and upgrading or replacing older radars like KHTX that stays down seemingly as much as it is online.
Slashing NOAA budgets with little thought as things have been done recently certainly is not the way, but I bet we could spend less and still provide the proper coverage. Hopefully some of the savings could be put towards filling in radar holes and upgrading or replacing older radars like KHTX that stays down seemingly as much as it is online.
It seems a good idea in theory, but some offices struggle during severe events even without any staffing issues - I feel like having a handful of centralized offices could magnify that problem. I've seen the local office in Peachtree City have trouble getting out warnings, more often than not due to the large geographical area they cover.
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If you don't believe me, listen to the moronic DoC secretary trying to explain why NWS offices are potentially going to have to cease 24/7 operations.
In larger offices, you would have bigger staffs to handle situations like that. You might end up with too many at first, but attrition due to retirement or other reasons will help find a good number.
I do see one big problem with that idea and that is how you would handle balloon launches. I suppose those could be subcontracted to local public officials, but I don't know enough about the balloon launches to know if that is feasible.
There are 122 WFO's across the United States. That's a lot of property to maintain and pay for.
Sure but it's also one of the most efficient government organizations in cost-to-benefit ratio. Not that there isn't anything to be done, but I think there's other things that could be looked at first when evaluating federal spending, which hasn't exactly gone down from previous years.
Zero-based budgeting is the answer to that. Answer for every dollar.
Obviously, I'm on the side of NOAA here, or I wouldn't have been a member on this board for over 20 years. I just can't allow my enthusiasm as a weather weenie cloud my judgement on whether or not things can be done more efficiently in the department. I don't even consider it wasteful spending that needs to be addressed, but instead it is time to rethink the way we deliver the information based on available technology.
But, again, there's that weather balloon thing. Until we can find a better way to sample the atmosphere, that would have to be addressed first.
