Meteorologist for the Houston Chronicle has been sounding the alarm on cuts to NOAA and climate science data collection.
A plus communication work here, leveraging the credibility of local TV meteorologists to inform audiences of what could be lost. Props the the local ABC station, channel 13, for giving air to this issue.
Justin Ballard in the Houston Chronicle:
Weather forecasts in Texas and across the United States, which have been critical for public safety during active storm seasons, will be impaired by more cuts to upper-air data collection, a move announced by the National Weather Service on Thursday.
Upper-air data collected by sensors, or radiosondes, are attached to weather balloons are launched twice daily under normal circumstances across more than 100 weather service offices. Hurricane scientists, meteorologists, and forecast modelers then feed upper-air data into weather models.
Radiosonde data is a crucial piece of the forecast puzzle:
- Forecast models used by the National Hurricane Center depend on upper-air data to initialize their forecasts every six hours.
- Upper-air data is vital to understanding how severe weather will evolve during an outbreak of life-threatening storms, like late December’s swarm of tornadoes across Southeast Texas.
- Data from the farthest reaches of the troposphere helped forecasters determine where snow would fall during January’s rare snowstorm and who might see sleet or a cold rain.
Atmospheric observations are critical to every aspect of weather forecasting. While some of these observations can be interpreted indirectly through satellite data or remote sensing techniques, radiosondes are the only way to get a direct measure of the upper atmosphere.
“Until further notice, the NWS may temporarily reduce or suspend scheduled radiosonde launches at select upper-air sites due to staffing limitations or operational priorities,” the weather service said Thursday. The announcement comes less than a month after upper-air data collection was partially suspended across six weather service officesfrom Wisconsin to Wyoming.
The pause is part of broader cuts to the weather service and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, that have taken place since February when hundreds of federal workers were fired. Some workers were reinstated to their position in March only to be let go again in early April.