Key US weather monitoring offices understaffed as hurricane season starts

More than a dozen National Weather Service (NWS) forecast offices along the hurricane-prone Gulf of Mexico coast are understaffed as the US plunges into an expected active season for ruinous storms, data seen by the Guardian shows.

There is a lack of meteorologists in 15 of the regional weather service offices along the coastline from Texas to Florida, as well as in Puerto Rico – an area that takes the brunt of almost all hurricanes that hit the US. Several offices, including in Miami, Jacksonville, Puerto Rico and Houston, lack at least a third of all the meteorologists required to be fully staffed.

Meanwhile, the National Hurricane Center (NHC), the Miami-based nerve center for tracking hurricanes, is short five specialists, the Guardian has learned, despite assurances from the Trump administration that it is fully staffed ahead of what’s anticipated to be a busy hurricane season that officially started on Sunday.

The center and local field offices work together to alert and prepare communities for incoming hurricanes, but they have been hit by job cuts and a hiring freeze imposed by the president, with more than 600 staff departing the NWS since Trump took power.

“The system is already overstretched and at some point it will snap,” said Tom Fahy, legislative director of the National Weather Service Employees Organization, an independent labor union and provider of the office staffing data. “We are at the snapping point now.”

An NHC spokesperson said the agency still has enough people to function properly. “NHC has a sufficient number of forecasters to fill mission-critical operational shifts during the 2025 hurricane season,” she said. “NHC remains dedicated to its mission, providing timely tropical weather forecasts and warnings pursuant to our public safety mission.”

But experts warned the turmoil unleashed by Trump upon the NWS and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), the national disaster agency that has had multiple leadership changes and still does not have a completed plan for this year’s hurricane season, will dangerously hamper the response to a summer that will likely bring storms, floods and wildfires across the US.

“Staff will put in an heroic effort but there is high probability of significant consequences because of the cuts,” said Rick Spinrad, who was administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) until January.

“If I were a citizen of Texas, Florida or Georgia, I wouldn’t be sure how well warned I would be of a hurricane. And if a hurricane was heading for a major city, I’m not confident Fema would be able to respond to the forecasted warnings.”

The NWS, which is part of Noaa, has been upended like other agencies by the efforts of Trump and the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) to slash the government workforce. The weather service has scrambled to fill gaps with temporary secondments from other offices, but many roles remain unfilled in outposts that usually have about 25 employees each.

The agency is now asking for relocations to fill empty meteorologist-in-charge positions, the most senior role at a field office, in Houston, Texas, and Lake Charles, Louisiana – both places that have experienced devastating hurricanes in recent years. Cover for dozens of other meteorologist roles across the US is also being sought, including in the hurricane-prone areas of Miami and Key West, both in Florida, and Mobile, Alabama, according to an internal NWS document.

In some cases, the loss of weather service personnel – from the firing of probationary workers and early retirements offered to veteran staff – has forced offices to shut down overnight rather than operate 24 hours a day as normal.

In seven of the 122 NWS stations across the US, including in Jackson, Kentucky, where a tornado killed 19 people this month, there will be no round-the-clock operation from 1 June. Of the 122 offices, 30 lack a meteorologist-in-charge.

While the weather service, which has existed in some form since 1870, has always had to shift around resources to deal with extreme events, former staff said the scale of the cuts place an unprecedented strain upon its ability to provide detailed, localized forecasts. The release of weather balloons has been scaled back, technicians who maintain radar equipment have been fired and there are concerns that “hurricane hunter” flights into storms will not be fully operational.

“I slept on the floor of the office during the hurricanes last year, but you can’t do that every day because it leads to burnout. What the National Weather Service is doing now is a short-term fix of musical chairs, it’s not sustainable,” said Brian LaMarre, a 30-year weather service veteran who took early retirement in April from his role as meteorologist-in-charge of the office in Tampa, Florida. “What’s needed is for the National Weather Service and Noaa to be funded properly.”

While the tracking of hurricanes, which has improved markedly in recent years as technology and forecast models have advanced, will still be handled by the NHC, there are concerns that understaffed local offices won’t be able to properly apply this information to affected areas.

“They can move the deckchairs on the Titanic but they just don’t have enough bodies to do the job they are supposed to do,” said James Franklin, a retired NWS meteorologist who is a hurricane specialist. “I’m worried the local offices won’t be able to communicate with local emergency services and local officials about threats because they won’t have the bodies to do it. The uncertainty level of the forecast will go up, too.”

Franklin said the cuts to jobs and to longer-term Noaa research aimed at improving forecasts will have a lasting impact. “It’s not even shortsighted, it’s no-sighted,” he said. “Even if you don’t see an impact this year, in five or 10 years you certainly will. They aren’t even going to save any money doing this; it seems ideologically driven to me.”

The tumult within the US’s premier weather agency comes as its leadership acknowledges that warm temperatures in the Gulf, a symptom of the climate crisis, will probably spur an above-normal number of hurricanes this year. Six to 10 storms are expected to become hurricanes with winds of 74mph (119km/h) or higher, with as many as five reaching at least 111mph (179km/h).

“Everything is in place for an above-average season,” Ken Graham, director of the NWS, said last week. “We’ve got to be prepared, right now. We’ve got to be ready.”

Yet uncertainty is now commonplace throughout the US government’s apparatus to predict and respond to disasters. The situation at a depleted Fema is particularly parlous, with the agency reducing training for state and local emergency managers and lagging months behind schedule in preparing for hurricane season.

Technicians monitor Hurricane Ian inside the National Response Coordination Center at Fema headquarters on 28 September 2022 in Washington DC. Photograph: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Trump and Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, have both openly mulled dismantling Fema and its new acting administrator has struck a belligerent tone. “I, and I alone in Fema, speak for Fema. I’m here to carry out the president’s intent for Fema,” David Richardson, a former marine with no emergency management experience, told staff in May. “I will run right over you,” he warned staff. “Don’t get in my way … I know all the tricks.”

“It’s a chaotic time at Fema, the constant departure of employees and the lack of leadership has distracted the agency from its mission,” said Michael Coen, who was chief of staff to the Fema administrator during the Biden administration.

“There’s a lot of confusion among states over what level of support they will get from the federal government. My concern is that if Fema has to respond to concurrent events, two hurricanes or a flood and a storm, it won’t have the capacity to provide the proper level of support.”

Such warnings have rattled some lawmakers amid a federal budget negotiation process that will probably conclude at some point during hurricane season, which stretches until November. Under a budget proposal outlined by Trump’s White House, Noaa’s $6bn budget would be shrunk by around a quarter, effectively eliminating its climate and weather research.

“Republicans and Democrats are concerned about this because they know a tornado doesn’t care if you live in a red state or a blue state,” said Fahy.

“Members of Congress are concerned, I’ve had several phone calls asking if we have enough people. The National Weather Service’s budget is the cost of a cup of coffee for every person across the United States. I think people would say that’s pretty good value.”

A Fema spokesperson said that the Trump administration is “committed to ensuring Americans affected by emergencies will get the help they need in a quick and efficient manner”.

“All operational and readiness requirements will continue to be managed without interruption in close coordination with local and state officials ahead of the 2025 hurricane season,” the spokesperson added.