Legislation to Create a National Disaster Review Board

[John Farley]

Interesting insights, @Jason N. I think the vast majority of what you are saying makes a great deal of sense. Certainly it would seem that there needs to be more focus on operations, since the operational side seems to be where things have been breaking down.

I would like to respond to one question you asked: "why are people complaining about Doge when the problems existed before it was even a thing?" I think the answer is that you do not fix something by taking resources away from it, especially when it ends up being almost totally on the basis of who is easiest to fire, not who is doing the best job. What is needed is not that kind of blind cutting, but rather a shakeup within the organization so that resources are used more effectively. And DOGE did not even try to do that. I agree with you that problems existed before DOGE, but the problem is that the approach that was used in DOGE did nothing to help with the problems and likely made them even worse, e.g. by some offices having to shut down at certain times.

 

[Jason N]

Interesting insights, @Jason N. I think the vast majority of what you are saying makes a great deal of sense. Certainly it would seem that there needs to be more focus on operations, since the operational side seems to be where things have been breaking down.

I would like to respond to one question you asked: "why are people complaining about Doge when the problems existed before it was even a thing?" I think the answer is that you do not fix something by taking resources away from it, especially when it ends up being almost totally on the basis of who is easiest to fire, not who is doing the best job. What is needed is not that kind of blind cutting, but rather a shakeup within the organization so that resources are used more effectively. And DOGE did not even try to do that. I agree with you that problems existed before DOGE, but the problem is that the approach that was used in DOGE did nothing to help with the problems and likely made them even worse, e.g. by some offices having to shut down at certain times.

John,

thanks for the reply, and fair point about budgets. I will reply with this. At some point, I think we have to separate the budget issue from quality of the resource contained within it. you can Amp up budgets and still get a crappy product, so how is that helping? what's the root issue.

I think that was my main point to make about DOGE, if someone can present a historical budget map of NOAA from 2000-2024, I would imagine that budgets have probably gone up NOAA wide. So, where did that money go and did the NWS maintain or increase its performance with bigger budgets?

Now, you can separate out People from technology here for a moment because there will always be a need for computer modeling, so while I am unsure of the details of modeling budgets, I can say from the Military side, we budget annually for the cost of doing business with the government and academia partnerships , and in the past 15years or so, we have continued to downsize in personnel. Yet we perform at high levels of Warning and Mission success all of the time.

So, technology is only part of the success of getting a warning issued successfully. The other half is people.. I will leave out the Bureaucratic machine, because I will imagine there needs to be some limited function and bureaucratic connection in a government run/funded agency, I would also contend, that there is probably layer upon layer of bureaucratic offices that probably don't even need to be inside NOAA, the mission is to make Warnings more accurate not sit on some committee or department sucking up GS14/15 money and not really doing anything but being one of 6,10,14 mid to high level division leads or deputy program managers. Perhaps DOGE is needed, even if it's temporary in nature focused on limiting that side of it. However, I will agree that a blind brush cutting effect isn't popular or successful either if it is in fact a blind brush cutting.

the truth is, it comes down to people giving a crap, training, mission, and if your budget goes down because an administration doesn't like climate change now, so what......

is the successful issuance of warnings inherently related to climate change policy? I am going with, I hope not... (let me say, I totally respect everyone who wants to earn a living doing this work in today's economy, but maybe you shouldn't get to earn a living if you can't perform your inherent mission, so there have to be consequences and impacts somewhere??)

I believe, but I am not 100% sure here, but on average, NWS employees beyond the initial 2-3yr training pipeline from GS 7/9/11, settle out mostly at the 12 and 13level for a good chunk of their careers, so somewhere in there is a GS12/13 is making 80-100K+, not doing their job of issuing a timely warning?. So, is it because they are saturated with too many other responsibilities?, then where is the NWS/NOAA fixing those capacity/capability/responsibility issues? when was their last manpower study? and while I do not know the current state of NWS employee pools, I know that recently, say in the last 5-10yrs there was a fairly major turnover in experienced employees that retired.. and perhaps the new breed is suffering from inexperience and possibly other issues? but again, that is conjecture to a point, but I have heard it may be part of the issue.

Meanwhile, the military is paying people 40 to 80K with the majority of the work being done with people making less than 60K protecting hundreds of billions of dollars in assets performing at an on average rate of about 80% success "globally". One might argue that we don't protect the public in the same way, we just protect our people and our assets over small areas, which isn't true at all ( the military is its OWN Aviation Weather Center, and its own NWS on a smaller scale, so those arguments don't matter, if you change the Area of Interest, and its geography, all your changing is the importance of the mission and why and what you're doing it for. You would get the same result. My point here is, There is a talent pool available, and I believe it would be in NOAA's best interest to pick from it and more than just from the WMO or Degree Pedigree standpoint.

 

[Mike Smith]

the truth is, it comes down to people giving a crap, training, mission, and if your budget goes down because an administration doesn't like climate change now, so what......

Thank you, thank you, Jason! Exactly right.

I hesitate to state this but it is accurate so here goes: in a bureaucracy, the measure of success is often more money and more headcount.

In business, it is "are we accomplishing our mission"? If yes, you can create more value, increase profits and provide better for your employees and shareholders. Because the NWS, as an organization, cannot be fired, there is near zero accountability for performance.

In private sector meteorology the level of accountability is extremely high because there is a free version of what we do. Your company has to create a great deal of value to compete against "free."

If I were 30 again, I would probably start an accredited junior college-level "career in private-sector meteorology" associates' degree that would teach forecasting, radar, warning strategy and communications, and business 101. Jason is right, we don't need partial differential equations to forecast the weather or issue a tornado warning. There is considerable evidence that some NWS offices have made the tornado warning process far too complicated which may related to the collapse in lead-time compared to 15 years ago.

Again, thanks for writing your piece, Jason.

 

[gdlewen]

If I were 30 again, I would probably start an accredited junior college-level "career in private-sector meteorology" associates' degree that would teach forecasting, radar, warning strategy and communications, and business 101. Jason is right, we don't need partial differential equations to forecast the weather or issue a tornado warning. There is considerable evidence that some

I'm going to step in here briefly on a fine point, but I think it is important. While forecasters may not use partial-differential equations (PDE) as part their everyday routine, those mathematical principles underly everything they are facing everyday. (Do I really have to give examples? Do you have all day for yet another TL;DR post? )

I am a firm believer in the rule that, "You should be educated at a level 1-2 steps more advanced than your everyday application of a subject."

I know this is a tangent but this thread occasionally devolves into a "thread of tangents" anyway. If anyone wants to debate the assertion above I wouldn't mind starting a new topic. (Kinda looking forward to it, actually: I'm that sure I'm right.)

 

[Mike Smith]

I'm going to step in here briefly on a fine point, but I think it is important. While forecasters may not use partial-differential equations (PDE) as part their everyday routine, those mathematical principles underly everything they are facing everyday.

I respectfully disagree based on the following: I am a peer-reviewed author in meteorological journals. I have more than 30 U.S. and foreign patents. And, not once in my forecasting career have I used any calculus, let alone PDE's.

I did use calculus a couple of times in my forensic work but no PDE's. We are training all meteorologists to be researchers instead of people who can apply meteorological principles to real-world problems.

In terms of % of meteorologists with masters degrees or higher, NWS/NOAA has never had a more educated workforce. But, with the exception of hurricanes and, perhaps, QPE (but not flash flood forecasts), the accuracy scores are going down. That tells me all I need to know w/r/t the necessity for higher division math for forecast and warning careers.

At my junior college for meteorologists, the students would take Calc I and II but that would be it.

 

[gdlewen]

I respectfully disagree based on the following: I am a peer-reviewed author in meteorological journals. I have more than 30 U.S. and foreign patents. And, not once in my forecasting career have I used any calculus, let alone PDE's.

I did use calculus a couple of times in my forensic work but no PDE's. We are training all meteorologists to be researchers instead of people who can apply meteorological principles to real-world problems.

In terms of % of meteorologists with masters degrees or higher, NWS/NOAA has never had a more educated workforce. But, with the exception of hurricanes and, perhaps, QPE (but not flash flood forecasts), the accuracy scores are going down. That tells me all I need to know w/r/t the necessity for higher division math for forecast and warning careers.

At my junior college for meteorologists, the students would take Calc I and II but that would be it.

OK, well, let's debate this in a new thread, then. But before I take my leave: I didn't say the forecasters used PDE explicitly. Only that they were educated in the principles--again the rule being you are familiar with a subject a few levels above the level at which you practice it. I will prepare my arsenal of examples and post a new topic when I am finished with some analysis on which I'm working.

 

[Jason N]

OK, well, let's debate this in a new thread, then. But before I take my leave: I didn't say the forecasters used PDE explicitly. Only that they were educated in the principles--again the rule being you are familiar with a subject a few levels above the level at which you practice it. I will prepare my arsenal of examples and post a new topic when I am finished with some analysis on which I'm working.

I'd be happy to join that discussion. There are good points that can surely be made from everyone here, but let's keep in mind, the topic is warning verification and standards. I think it's fine that education be a part of hiring but let's also be mindful of the fact that PDE is not used in steps to resource protect.. there are no SOPs that explicitly state, Check with your PDE prior to issuance. On that I know we would all agree.

Where I think you are headed is, should a situation come up where PDE might become useful in the issuance of a Warning because I have the knowledge of it or not? I again would say no. This is why in the NWS as an organization has SOO's that can/should perform that task should it be necessary, but missing that one element for the sake of a hiring process? is where the system has a flaw. maybe the Makeup of an NWS office should be looked at the maximize impact on both the Operational and science.

My entire operational forecasting life has been around strong knowledge in thermal dynamics, radar physics and principles, the EM spectrum, deterministic and probability model usage and understanding of the top 30-40% of how its created, weaknesses, biases etc. Satellite analysis and forecasting from satellite, and I could go on. I would agree with you in principle about higher level education, but those are split roads the travel down particular pathways in science, all of which are useful in their own way. But there is a practicality in Operational forecasting that comes with Art, and Science Combined with the ability to make decisions, and most of those decisions are not made with educational intent.. they are made with a level of interpretation in the moment. Not sourced from higher education, but sourced for solid operational experience

My views are my own and I am not trying to break the foundations down here. So, I applaud you for wanting to defend my particular example of DIF-EQ, but the facts are still in our face, there is a problem, and it does need to be solved, and I don't think purely saying having higher education is the answer to that problem alone. We have had a history of very highly educated people in this industry for a long time now, and the results are, there is a Warning problem and it hasn't gotten better with higher education alone.

 

[John Farley]

John,

thanks for the reply, and fair point about budgets. I will reply with this. At some point, I think we have to separate the budget issue from quality of the resource contained within it. you can Amp up budgets and still get a crappy product, so how is that helping? what's the root issue.

I think that was my main point to make about DOGE, if someone can present a historical budget map of NOAA from 2000-2024, I would imagine that budgets have probably gone up NOAA wide. So, where did that money go and did the NWS maintain or increase its performance with bigger budgets?

I don't have a lot of time for a detailed discussion right now, but I did find this on NOAA's web pages - not the exact years you suggested, but it does not look like the NWS budget was going up:


Now this is the NWS, not NOAA. NOAA's overall budget might have, and perhaps as Mike has argued there should be some reallocation from NOAA to the NWS. But not large NWS cuts in budget and personnel as happened under DOGE, which resulted in firing new, promising employees with the most current education and training, not people getting near retirement with bigger salaries and perhaps less motivation.

So, technology is only part of the success of getting a warning issued successfully. The other half is people.. I will leave out the Bureaucratic machine, because I will imagine there needs to be some limited function and bureaucratic connection in a government run/funded agency, I would also contend, that there is probably layer upon layer of bureaucratic offices that probably don't even need to be inside NOAA, the mission is to make Warnings more accurate not sit on some committee or department sucking up GS14/15 money and not really doing anything but being one of 6,10,14 mid to high level division leads or deputy program managers. Perhaps DOGE is needed, even if it's temporary in nature focused on limiting that side of it. However, I will agree that a blind brush cutting effect isn't popular or successful either if it is in fact a blind brush cutting.

I pretty much agree with everything you say here. I am not sure we have very much disagreement at all. In fact, I said before that I agree with the great majority of your earlier post.

 

[Jason N]

Interesting budgetary post, John. I am unsure what specific departments get funded with discretionary funds as opposed to operational funds, so I can't speak to it specifically, to be honest, but its a good visual at least in part.

 

[Jason N]

But not large NWS cuts in budget and personnel as happened under DOGE, which resulted in firing new, promising employees with the most current education and training, not people getting near retirement with bigger salaries and perhaps less motivation.

John : I am going to wax poetic for a moment: this statement has no basis in fact. just observation and self-evaluation.

I think it's hard to quantify motivation from new vs. older employees. There could be, but I could argue that many younger employees don't seem AS motivated as older ones in more than a few cases, and I don't think this is NWS alone, I think it's more noticeable across the spectrum. something culturally or psychologically, as a result of changes in the presence of social media, AI, and maybe how we see ourselves and the world around us? and you know, I really can't source it, but I think it comes down to what are willing to see, what are we willing to admit about ourselves, about our work habits, about expectations, against standards and practices, the importance of the work, Ethics, etc. We are probably all guilty at one time or another of finding that spark in ourselves to self-motivate coming to work.

There are two cultures maybe at odds.. the classically trained MET from 30-40yrs ago, and todays' modern digitized intelligent Code it in 10 min, then back to FB updates, need a coffee break, Tik Tok gotta have it now crew. I honestly can't know if it matters to WARNVER? but something does.

If I were wanting to find some data to support my argument, I would have data scientists dig into several aspects of WARNVER stats to budgets, training programs, personnel changes, average ages or experience levels and see what evolves and do it away from the higher leadership that could cherry pick data to support B.S. .. If the organization cares, it will do what it takes.