Firing of 800 NOAA Employees

[Mike Smith]

This is exactly how a Disaster Review Board could help the NWS and the useful parts of NOAA.

Right now, DOGE and the Trump Administration don't know who to believe with regard to these agencies, so they invite the NTSB to testify. A DRB would testify before Congress and advise Trump's and future administrations.

Have you contacted your congresspeople?

 

[Mike Smith]

I've excluded the NWS from the discussion above because the NWS, IMO, may be more effective on the public's payroll, due to the large number of different services they provide daily to both public and private interests, as well having the capital outlays to be able to consistently provide such services. And, a strong argument can also be made that the NWS is absolutely crucial for keeping U.S. citizens safe from many types of natural disasters. So, I agree that that there's no need to rush to privatize the NWS, just perhaps make it a bit more efficient in executing its primary mission of observational-data collection for forecasting and warning the public when necessary. The research parts could be farmed out to academic institutions (public and private) and specialty labs (which could also be public-, private-, or a partnership-funded).

Randy:

For those who do not want to go back and read 80 messages:You note that NWS, via IDSS and otherwise, provides forecasts and/or provides manpower to "private interests." It never should have been allowed to do that. While I certainly note correlation ≠ causation, the decrease in NWS storm warning accuracy in general, and tornado warnings in particular, corresponds almost exactly to the era of IDSS. IDSS and the NWS's other "corporate welfare" activities need to cease. They can use that decrease in labor demand to launch rawinsondes.

By law, the NWS provides forecasts, warnings and collects data for the public, and for aviation and marine industries (as in flights and sailings, not their factories). Everything it does should be "free" (actually paid for each April 15). That should be its mission -- period. My vision for the NWS is that it becomes an independent agency comprised of today's NWS + NEDIS + slimmed down NSSL + US Drought Program and a few other miscellaneous federal programs related to weather.

If an electric utility or a baseball team wants a specialized forecast or warnings, that is what the private sector meteorological sector is for. Everything on NCDC's web page should be free to access. But, if an attorney or engineer wants a specialized data search and/or certification of meteorological records, they can pay for it.

Note I said nothing about modeling being part of the NWS. NWS/NOAA's modeling efforts are a fiasco and that function should go to university researchers or (gasp!) private sector companies who would create models under contract.

To hold the "new" NWS accountable and to improve our knowledge of, and ability to respond to, disasters -- with emphasis on forecasting and response -- the Disaster Review Board (DRB) will do what the NTSB does. It will also keep the stats on NWS storm warning accuracy and create a "natural disaster knowledge database" just as the NTSB does with transportation disasters.

I wish to emphasize that if a major disasters occurs (LA fires or Helene's effects from coast to Appalachians), the work of all parties (not just the NWS) will be evaluated by the DRB. This includes emergency management at all levels, TV weathercasts, private sector meteorological companies, et cetera. One of the most important functions of the DRB will be the promulgation of "best practices."

At this point, I do not see any need to privatize the above NWS. From the point of view of this Reagan conservative, protection of the public (Army, police) is part of the core functions of government. That said, today's NWS terribly slow (five years to merely decide what type or radar they want?!) and inefficient. It has a very low sense of urgency regarding fixing its many issues.

NOAA launches expensive "gold plated" satellites that would be far less expensive if produced by the private sector. NWS might actually have to (again, gasp!) purchase off-the-shelf radars that do 98% of that their "customized" (and 10 times more expensive) future radars might do.

 

[Randy Zipser]

Randy:

For those who do not want to go back and read 80 messages:You note that NWS, via IDSS and otherwise, provides forecasts and/or provides manpower to "private interests." It never should have been allowed to do that. While I certainly note correlation ≠ causation, the decrease in NWS storm warning accuracy in general, and tornado warnings in particular, corresponds almost exactly to the era of IDSS. IDSS and the NWS's other "corporate welfare" activities need to cease. They can use that decrease in labor demand to launch rawinsondes.

By law, the NWS provides forecasts, warnings and collects data for the public, and for aviation and marine industries (as in flights and sailings, not their factories). Everything it does should be "free" (actually paid for each April 15). That should be its mission -- period. My vision for the NWS is that it becomes an independent agency comprised of today's NWS + NEDIS + slimmed down NSSL + US Drought Program and a few other miscellaneous federal programs related to weather.

If an electric utility or a baseball team wants a specialized forecast or warnings, that is what the private sector meteorological sector is for. Everything on NCDC's web page should be free to access. But, if an attorney or engineer wants a specialized data search and/or certification of meteorological records, they can pay for it.

Note I said nothing about modeling being part of the NWS. NWS/NOAA's modeling efforts are a fiasco and that function should go to university researchers or (gasp!) private sector companies who would create models under contract.

To hold the "new" NWS accountable and to improve our knowledge of, and ability to respond to, disasters -- with emphasis on forecasting and response -- the Disaster Review Board (DRB) will do what the NTSB does. It will also keep the stats on NWS storm warning accuracy and create a "natural disaster knowledge database" just as the NTSB does with transportation disasters.

I wish to emphasize that if a major disasters occurs (LA fires or Helene's effects from coast to Appalachians), the work of all parties (not just the NWS) will be evaluated by the DRB. This includes emergency management at all levels, TV weathercasts, private sector meteorological companies, et cetera. One of the most important functions of the DRB will be the promulgation of "best practices."

At this point, I do not see any need to privatize the above NWS. From the point of view of this Reagan conservative, protection of the public (Army, police) is part of the core functions of government. That said, today's NWS terribly slow (five years to merely decide what type or radar they want?!) and inefficient. It has a very low sense of urgency regarding fixing its many issues.

NOAA launches expensive "gold plated" satellites that would be far less expensive if produced by the private sector. NWS might actually have to (again, gasp!) purchase off-the-shelf radars that do 98% of that their "customized" (and 10 times more expensive) future radars might do.

Thanks for the details above, Mike. I made the statement above purely from a simple, pragmatic point of view, not realizing that there are so many different "parts" involved with the NWS and all its operations. Thankfully, you have much better knowledge and certainly experience about how all these parts are supposed to work together and why they were created in the first place. Your idea of creating the NDRB would take care of a lot of the present-day problems about what agency (or part of an agency, such as in the example of the NIST in yesterday's discussions) would be responsible for handling a given atmospheric-related natural disaster. I'm completely onboard with your concept there.

And, you are absolutely right about how slowly the NWS had been to adapt to the evolving technology in the latter-half of the 20th century, especially (e.g., 24 years between the WSR-57 and WSR-81D Doppler radars being used in the NWS forecast and field offices)! That would never happen today, but technology-adaptation would probably still be slower than if these offices were in market-driven, private hands. In any event, as all the dust settles post-Trump/DOGE era, I believe that a more public forecast/warning-centric, and nimble style of NWS will emerge. As I stated in an earlier post (I forgot where), if it were up to me to do the federal-agency "housecleaning" that Musk is doing now, I'd put all agencies having anything to do with information/data technology and scientific functions under one umbrella agency called the Department of Innovative Technologies and Sciences (DITS). That way, it would be so much easier for the DRB to determine where needed assets should be appropriated, resulting in much more rapid response and less waste of time determining staffing requirements.

I'm a bit perplexed at your statement above, however, that the NWS should never have been allowed to provide forecasts and/or manpower to "private interests," unless there's something I'm missing here. Had that been the case back in 1981, The Weather Channel may have never gotten off the ground! And there are many other similar examples. The line between public and private weather services will continue to be a broad one, even with the NWS of the future. No doubt, they must (and will) find an efficient way to work together going forward...hopefully better than either may be able to provide their respective services separately today.

 

[Dave C]

NOAA launches expensive "gold plated" satellites that would be far less expensive if produced by the private sector.

I don't mean to get too far off topic here, but have to strongly disagree with you on this. NOAA satellites are/were produced by the private sector, and we got a pretty great result for the money spent. I don't see much bloat in their designs. There was some serious bloat in the selection process and mission criteria (which is where government tends to always struggle, but they are trying to balance the needs of many groups, not just investors). Trillions in property and life are protected by these sats. daily. They are critical national assets whose use is not limited to NOAA/NWS weather data. Private industry makes a killing using their free data directly, and the rest of us benefit often directly and indirectly by knowing better when bad terrestrial or space weather is threatening infrastructure, property, or lives. Even with some waste we are getting an incredible return on investment.

I can only assume you for some reason disagree with how they were paid for and capability selected by public/private partnership? I will reiterate that the government did not design, built, test, or deploy these - they paid the private sector to do that for them after the mission was defined.

The outcome of private sector only (meaning they think up the mission and take all the risk themselves) satellites would likely not be as positive as it might seem at first glance. Only being motivated by profit/markets/perceived efficiency can be as bad as never being motivate by profits/markets/perceived efficiency. One example: the majority of communication constellations in orbit today went bankrupt over the decades at some point, and that is part of why those solutions (Iridium, etc) are expensive for customers and offer low capability today. In contrast, many of the commercial GPS/imagery and other products developed in public/private partnership on the back of things developed for defense or public sector science are more financially successful for investors and also cheaper for the public/customer in the end.

Very few companies have what it takes to succeed in the space/sat business. It is complex and expensive to get things to work well in the space environment. Intelligent government spending can help endeavors along that otherwise would not be possible when profit is often the only important measure. The public/private partnership ensures that companies spend (often on their own dime) to develop technology platforms over time, and they get financial (and in some cases) technical expertise continuity from the government with (hopefully) a little bit of profit for their troubles. Getting weather, GPS, or solar data might likely cost a heck of a lot more to the public if the government had not been involved and we all had to pay whatever private industry decides to charge for data from whatever sat they eventually got up there (if they got there at all).

Public money should be spent well, and we should recognize and correct when it is not being, but nuanced thinking is needed on each detail of spending choice. I don't see a lot of that from either of the two major political entities or their philosophy on spending. It seems to be an all or nothing polarized approach. I am personally averse to some of the more partisan thinking on just about anything because it risks acting in a generic or emotional manner that does not meet actual needs, when a specific and nuanced solution is more effective. The best solution to my mind whether we’re talking about radar, local NWS offices and their staff and infrastructure, etc. or whatever else- is to make careful and reality connected balanced funding choices in public/private partnerships. That arrangement almost always produces the best possible outcome for everyone in many ways. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater just because NASA and NOAA, etc has had some serious waste. Much better to make appropriate course corrections than to can it all and move 100% to private industry.

 

[John Farley]

I never said the NWS had a monopoly on warnings or that they do not sometimes get things wrong. However, many people and organizations DO rely on the NWS for warnings and if you degrade the quality of the NWS you degrade the quality of the warnings. And if you reduce the quality of warnings and/or the number of ways people can get warnings, you put people in danger. Yes, most people have smartphones (though there are subgroups where that is less true), but the EAS alerts for tornado warnings and others do originate from the NWS.

 

[Mike Smith]

I'm a bit perplexed at your statement above, however, that the NWS should never have been allowed to provide forecasts and/or manpower to "private interests," unless there's something I'm missing here. Had that been the case back in 1981, The Weather Channel may have never gotten off the ground!

Dick Halgren, then director of the NWS, did all kinds of things for The Weather Channel he never would have done for anything else which was against official federal policy at the time. For example, the coding of zone forecasts and warnings was specifically for TWC's "Weather Star" which was the device that allowed each cable system to have their local forecast, warnings, etc. The original coding was unique to the Star device and not compatible with any other devices. Why should TWC have exclusive service from the NWS and not AccuWeather, WeatherScan or any other private weather company in business at the time? That was pure corporate welfare.

I don't mean to get too far off topic here, but have to strongly disagree with you on this. NOAA satellites are/were produced by the private sector, and we got a pretty great result for the money spent. I don't see much bloat in their designs. There was some serious bloat in the selection process and mission criteria (which is where government tends to always struggle, but they are trying to balance the needs of many groups, not just investors).

Hi Dave, thanks for your comment. I appreciate the chance to clarify.

Yes! NESDIS/NOAA/NASA satellites are marvels. They are school bus-sized platforms that do enable the saving of lives (indirectly through weather forecasts and directly through their ability to sense and relay distress signals in the far corners of the earth).

But you also wrote, "There was some serious bloat in the selection process and mission criteria" -- which is exactly my criticism. The original GOES satellites were designed in an era where NASA had an (expensive) monopoly on launches. So, to save $$, the theory was "let's cram every instrument onto a single satellite" and launch once. Of course, that is putting the meteorological eggs in one basket and that has been disastrous as we've lost a couple of them. We were in desperate shape in the late 80's when one failed and the replacement blew up shortly after launch.

This is a perfect example of NWS/NESDIS/NOAA/NASA being very late to adapt to new technology.

Launches are now so cheap they are almost a commodity -- 30 to 40 times less per pound lifted (including the inflation adjustment) -- than in the early stages of GOES and POES. A number of experts (I'm not an expert) say it would be less expensive, less risky, and result in better quality results to add the latest technology onto 2-3 smaller satellites rather than launching "school buses." For example, put the meteorological instruments on one satellite, the search & rescue and related items on a second, and turn the GOES "relay" function over to ordinary commercial weather satellites. As far as I can tell, NOAA is planning on launching school buses for the foreseeable future.

I never said the NWS had a monopoly on warnings or that they do not sometimes get things wrong. However, many people and organizations DO rely on the NWS for warnings and if you degrade the quality of the NWS you degrade the quality of the warnings. And if you reduce the quality of warnings and/or the number of ways people can get warnings, you put people in danger. Yes, most people have smartphones (though there are subgroups where that is less true), but the EAS alerts for tornado warnings and others do originate from the NWS.

John, again: I want a strong, vibrant NWS that executes its core mission (forecasts, warnings, data for the public-at-large) with excellence!!!!!

I want the NWS to stop all non-core activity NOW. Did you know the NWS no longer has a school for radar and storm warning training (it used to be in OUN and was closed in 2004)? But, instead of training people to issue quality warnings, they have started a 240 hour school to teach meteorologists how to perform IDSS duties! Their priorities are exactly backward. I'll say it again: If the St. Louis Cardinals, for example, want special, site-specific forecasts and warnings, they can hire a commercial weather company to provide them.

If I didn't want NWS and EM excellence, there would be no need for the DRB.

In the era of "Obamaphones," I worry much less that people who aren't as well off as you or I don't have access to smartphones and the storm warnings they can provide. We don't live in a perfect world and never will. Everyone should have storm quality storm warnings available to them. Right now, the NWS too often doesn't provide the quality it did 15 years ago. Surely, the regression in warning quality is not acceptable to you!?


To everyone:

I am well aware there are some within NOAA, even pre-DOGE, that want to close some/many of the ~124 NWS offices in favor of:

• Returning to the old WSFO/WFO model (pre-NEXRAD) where a single office in the state does the forecasting and the other radar offices do the warnings. In some cases where offices are geographically close (TOP and KC [EAX]), offices would be closed.
• A "climate region" (e.g., Rocky Mountains, Southern Great Plains) regional office model that would do all of the forecasting and warnings. Each radar location would have a small contingent of techs and perhaps a met or two to gather local storm reports, etc.
• Or -- believe it or not -- set up a storm warning model similar to SPC and the National Water Center for warnings! For example, all SVR, TOR and FFW's would be issued by a single office!

I assure you, my sources regarding the above are excellent, The decision has already been made to merge WPC and CPC into one organization. I have been aware these discussions began with Joe Biden as President. Nothing may happen or a lot may happen. And, I continue to fear malicious compliance.

My personal opinion is that the present model will work just fine if the NWS cuts out the distractions (IDSS, etc.) and teaches their dedicated work staff to issue excellent products as they did when their training operation (OUN school 1991-2004) was in operation. They also need to go "back to the future" with instructors with the abilities of, say, a Joe Bastardi, etc., on non-model forecasting techniques for 0-48 hour forecasts. In a situation of returning Gulf moisture with ACCAS exploding in the sky means nocturnal thunderstorms in the region will occur regardless of what the HRRR might say.

We have a chance to influence all of this: Go to your congresspeoples' web sites and tell them your concerns and what you think the future should look like. I will caution that telling them to "leave everything alone" or "lives are at stake, don't cut anything" is a losing proposition. But, constructive changes will likely be well received.

Enjoy your weekend and the opportunities to (safely!) chase.

9pm CDT Friday: When I wrote the above about Joe Bastardi and non-model forecasting, I was completely unaware of this: The Predicted Severe Storms Never Occurred. Why?

I cannot overemphasize how many of their forecasts bust because of ignorance of forecasting techniques we were taught in our first applied forecasting class in 1972.

 

[Randy Zipser]

Really good discussions above, Dave, John, and Mike! I have learned a lot of things I did not know.

 

[Dave C]

Hi Dave, thanks for your comment. I appreciate the chance to clarify.

Yes! NESDIS/NOAA/NASA satellites are marvels. They are school bus-sized platforms that do enable the saving of lives (indirectly through weather forecasts and directly through their ability to sense and relay distress signals in the far corners of the earth).

But you also wrote, "There was some serious bloat in the selection process and mission criteria" -- which is exactly my criticism. The original GOES satellites were designed in an era where NASA had an (expensive) monopoly on launches. So, to save $$, the theory was "let's cram every instrument onto a single satellite" and launch once. Of course, that is putting the meteorological eggs in one basket and that has been disastrous as we've lost a couple of them. We were in desperate shape in the late 80's when one failed and the replacement blew up shortly after launch.

This is a perfect example of NWS/NESDIS/NOAA/NASA being very late to adapt to new technology.

Launches are now so cheap they are almost a commodity -- 30 to 40 times less per pound lifted (including the inflation adjustment) -- than in the early stages of GOES and POES. A number of experts (I'm not an expert) say it would be less expensive, less risky, and result in better quality results to add the latest technology onto 2-3 smaller satellites rather than launching "school buses." For example, put the meteorological instruments on one satellite, the search & rescue and related items on a second, and turn the GOES "relay" function over to ordinary commercial weather satellites. As far as I can tell, NOAA is planning on launching school buses for the foreseeable future.

Some good points.

I fully agree that there were a lot of blunders. It seems like a lot of the problems of the 80s through early 2000s are past though, and the industry is already not being nearly so wasteful anymore. It's great to have new launch partners that are much more economical than NASA or ULA ever were, although both of those entities have their place and gave continuity to the industry when it otherwise may have faltered. We now have engineering options that old programs didn't have, and they are being used for future products.

In my opinion the JPSS separation from DWSS was a particular turning point away from truly bad ideas for the NOAA line of sats, and that particular bad idea largely was by trying to meet defense and public needs with the same hardware, which was impractical. Previous sats, you're right, favored one large sat because space networking technology was not yet as robust and launch options were limited. Now that both of those situations are improved, I am still not sure I would agree it is the best idea to split everything out from one payload. I'm speculating (with some educated reasoning based on knowledge of the industry) that total launch weight can end up higher since some components have to be on each separate payload. Complexity of the design can increase in some ways and decrease in other by splitting the problem into pieces. Reliability is similar - you may not have a total loss if one payload is lost out of several you launch, but overall system reliability may suffer in certain ways. Latency may improve if you have enough sats. at the right positions, but you have to spend to develop the on orbit intersat relay functions.

Splitting up one sat. to many could mean instead of a common instrument bus (speaking of the power, cooling, and signal backbone inside the sat, not the schoolbus size 'bus' package) with a proven track record, you often have to make new designs for the bus, new command and data handling and attitude and control and telemetry hardware for multuple sats, new cooling designs, new power designs, new mating design within the fairing, and then add the complexity to network intersat or to ground stations independently, etc. So there are trade offs. Without seeing detail of a proposed mission of either type, I am in no position to say one is cheaper than another, but I can say the government and industry sides of the sat business are all about cheaper these days.

While gradually, it is true that proliferated space (constellations of smaller sats as opposed to large single payloads) is indeed doing some things cheaper and better than older ways of larger sats, and I expect the trend to continue, there is always going to be some complexity that can add along with in some cases loss of capability and reliability that has to be made up with spares or networks. So I expect the transition should stay slow and methodical, and some payloads should probably still be large monolithic single sats. Since everything is networked solutions now, developed over the last decade, the technology exists to make it much easier and less risky to try to split up payloads, but to be clear this would not have been as feasible 10-20 years ago.

Another consideration is that when commercial sats are used, their quality is often not at the national asset level. What I mean by that, is that they often posture their programs to be cheaper/faster and take on more risk to make it to market faster with the trade off of accepted higher probability of failure. These are also more likely to be less hardeded against the space environment, less tested, looser risk parameters all around, etc. They get around risk with either constellations/spares, or yes very large insurance policies and then launch again years later.

National asset class missions in contrast are 'can't fail' missions that have extreme scrutiny, better components, tighter requirements and much more engineering that might seem wasteful from the outside, but is the reason so many missions go well beyond their mission life even in orbits that are very bad for the hardware. I think they may always have their place but I am not opposed to seeing payloads split up as long as we all get an equivalent or better product that is cost effective.

In general my whole point after all that babbling, is this. I have some knowledge of the sat. field from private sector side, and I don't see the big waste on either private or public sector side is really present anymore. Waste from the past is not necessarily applicable to the present industry today. Some of the things now being considered wasteful were technology limitations no one had a way around before. The sat. industry has been adapting rapidly in the last decade and the current financial climate is strongly geared to cost effectiveness. I fully expect technology solutions to move to whatever can accomplish the mission with the smallest budget possible.

Anyhow, I appreciate the exchange. Nice to have discussion with some critical thinking and I know we all share the same goal getting what we actually need out of our agencies, and spending wisely.

 

[Mike Smith]

Dave, really appreciate your comments, thank you.

 

[John Farley]

Mike, I completely agree with you that the regression in warning quality is unacceptable, and that the closing of the radar and warning school was a mistake. And I agree with you that the presence of less well-trained personnel in NWS offices is a likely cause of the decline in warning quality. We should bring the state of training back to what it was 20+ years ago. That costs money, and while you are probably right that funding was shifted from training to less useful activities, a time in which we need to be investing in training is not the time for large-scale cuts that are indiscriminate in nature (often targeting those who are easiest to fire rather than those who are least productive or essential) rather than targeted to lower-priority activities. I think this is the objection that a lot of people have to the ways in which DOGE has gone about making cuts to the NWS and a number of other agencies like the Forest Service and Park Service in which cuts have been done in a similar way.

 

[Mike Smith]

a time in which we need to be investing in training is not the time for large-scale cuts that are indiscriminate in nature (often targeting those who are easiest to fire rather than those who are least productive or essential) rather than targeted to lower-priority activities. I think this is the objection that a lot of people have to the ways in which DOGE has gone about making cuts to the NWS

John, you and I are in complete agreement about this. While NOAA had lots of fat to cut, the NWS had very little (which is not to say they were spending their money and resources well, e.g. IDSS, closing the radar school, etc.). DOGE has done a poor job of deciding what/who to cut.

 

[Randy Jennings]

Victor Gensini posted an X thread with a lot of detail on NWS staffing vacancies by office. I don't know the data source, but intersting read.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1906887776282308766