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Firing of 800 NOAA Employees

The attachments below are three stories from May 14th, 18th, and today, about staffing cuts at the NWS and FEMA and the recent KY tornadoes and upcoming hurricane season. Within the past hour, CNN also aired an excellent interview with Rick Spinrad, who served as the 11th Administrator of NOAA as well as Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere from 2021-2025, related to the same topic. Hopefully, CNN will re-air this interview in its entirety later today at CNN or post at CNN Weather.
 

Attachments

Randy Zipser said:
CNN also aired an excellent interview with Rick Spinrad, who served as the 11th Administrator of NOAA
Click to expand...
Spinrad -- who knows nothing about meteorology -- was the source of many of the NWS's problems. From where I sit, it is chutzpah for him to complain about the current state of the NWS.
 
Randy,

Under Spinrad:
  • Tens of millions were sent to his buddies in the climate field without accountability, including $60 million for "Maine Won't Wait" -- an "education" program without measurable goals. Can you imagine what the NWS could do with that $$ ?
  • FOUR upper air stations closed.
  • NWS hiring went from usually 3 months or so to as many as 9 months. That's why there were 300+ openings before Trump was sworn in on January 20.
  • He knows nothing about weather and doesn't care. I sent a well-documented and respectful letter to him in December 2023 about the increasingly serious issues with his tornado warnings. He forwarded it down the organization and used (ahem!) creative verification figures to make the situation appear better than it actually was.
 
We now know there was no advance warning of the STL tornado. Watch this:
You see the debris hitting the car before you hear the tornado warning come over the radio. At lower right is the time of day which also confirms the tornado was in progress before the warning.

Another giant miss!
 
Last edited:
Mike Smith said:
Randy,

Under Spinrad:
  • Tens of millions were sent to his buddies in the climate field without accountability, including $60 million for "Maine Won't Wait" -- an "education" program without measurable goals. Can you imagine what the NWS could do with that $$ ?
  • FOUR upper air stations closed.
  • NWS hiring went from usually 3 months or so to as many as 9 months. That's why there were 300+ openings before Trump was sworn in on January 20.
  • He knows nothing about weather and doesn't care. I sent a well-documented and respectful letter to him in December 2023 about the increasingly serious issues with his tornado warnings. He forwarded it down the organization and used (ahem!) creative verification figures to make the situation appear better than it actually was.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info above. I know that his background is in oceanography, not meteorology, which explains his missteps with the NWS. The reason I said the interview was "excellent" was not because Spinrad said anything especially memorable, but because the woman who interviewed him was no "shrinking violet"...she asked many probing questions, including the staffing cuts at the NWS (I recall that she cited the GLD NWS office as an example).

If the NWS is faced with fewer staff going forward, it seems that good, capable, experienced meteorologists in the field offices and qualified administrator(s) in Washington looking out for the field offices are now more important than ever. Quality of services will suffer due to staff "burnout" if a prolonged regional weather disaster occurs, considering the shift-work nature of keeping the offices open 24/7.
 
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