I’m all for cuts into government waste, however, this one really hits home.
The National Weather Service announced Thursday that they’re terminating weather balloon launches in two more cities and reducing launches at six more sites, all due to staffing cuts and hiring freezes initiated by the Trump administration. We’ve now lost all weather balloon launches at four sites across the U.S.
This many disruptions could affect severe weather forecasting and weather models going forward.
Temperature, moisture, and wind data collected by radiosondes attached to weather balloons are a critical for meteorologists during severe weather season. This data also feeds into computer models to help them understand what the atmosphere looks like now so they can figure out what may happen in the future.
Courtesy NOAA
Weather balloons or “radiosondes” play a very important role in regards to forecasting weather, especially SEVERE WEATHER!!! These weather balloons are launched 2x a day and that data gets fed into supercomputers which are used to forecast the weather. It is CRUCIAL to know what is going on above the surface in regards to wind speed, direction, humidity, temps etc. Sure, some of this can be gathered by satellite but not nearly the preciseness that a weather balloon can.
The NWS (National Weather Service) is already short staffed around the country and with DOGE cuts coming to NOAA, this is BAD news for the general public. It may not seem like it, but this COULD effect lives during severe weather season.
Chief Meteorologist,
Dean Wysocki
