NWS in Nashville tries to keep sunny outlook despite DOGE cuts
"It'll tug on you, and you let it go," she told her young helpers as they prepared to set the orb aloft.
The 6-foot sphere climbed toward the clouds. Onlookers waved goodbye. Some roared in awe.
"I've never seen a weather balloon," said Bryce Hoyt, 10, of Mt. Juliet. "I was expecting it to be a normal-size balloon."
The latex object, filled with hydrogen, was headed more than 20 miles up into the Earth's lower atmosphere, Holley explained during the July 15 demonstration at the National Weather Service's Nashville office. Its flight was expected to last about two hours, during which it would transmit data back every minute to the weather service office, tracking atmospheric pressure, humidity, temperature and wind speed.
"Our launch will help mold what we're forecasting," Holley said. Balloons also help the National Hurricane Center track storms.
NWS sends balloons up at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. daily. Eventually they reach an altitude where pressure dissipates. Then they expand to the size of a single-story house and pop, Holley said.
Bryce played a hand in this week's event, helping tie a knot around the ballon's base. He'd love to become a meteorologist some day, he said, so he can be in charge of releasing the balloon.
Uncertain future forecast for NWS
The balloon launch was part of an event meant to help the public to learn about the weather agency. It came amid budget cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that experts warn threaten the future of agencies that operate under NOAA, like the National Weather Service.
'It will stop all progress' in U.S. forecasting, James Franklin, who retired in 2017 as chief of the National Hurricane Center's forecast specialists, told USA TODAY. 'We're going to stagnate and we're not going to continue to improve as we go forward.'
"If NWS products and services are reduced, we all suffer," renowned Alabama meteorologist James Spann said in a social media post earlier this year, "especially during times of life-threatening weather."
Inside Climate News, a nonprofit news organization, reported that federal cuts have led to a decrease in the number of weather balloon launches across the country.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick defended the cuts during a June 5 hearing on Capitol Hill, saying NOAA is 'transforming how we track storms and forecast weather with cutting-edge technology.'
The weather service's Nashville office lost about seven employees from Jan. 1 to May 27, records show.
The weather service has 16 employees with seven openings as department operate under a hiring freeze, according to NOAA spokesperson Marissa Anderson.
"The National Weather Service continues to meet its core missions amid recent reorganization efforts and is taking steps to prioritize critical research and services that keep the American public safe and informed," she said in a statement. "NWS is committed to investing in new technology and prioritizing public safety."
Anderson said NWS is working to fill filed positions to be advertised as critical and an exception to current hiring freezes. She did not say if any of those positions would emanate from Nashville.
The weather service employees around 4,250 people across 122 local offices, each doing the same daily balloon launches.
The proposed White House budget for NOAA would see a 40% cut, or approximately $2.3 billion less than in 2024.
It costs around $1 billion to fund NWS across the country; Holley said that equates to $3 per person in the United States to fund the agency that provides life-saving weather information to people impacted by flooding, tornadoes and other severe weather events.
"We issue severe weather warnings and watches," Holley said. "We are the only people in America that can do that," she said. "We issue 7-day forecasts for the entire nation. We monitor river conditions.
"We are here watching the weather for you guys."
USA TODAY reporter Dinah Voyles Pulver contributed to this story.
Reach reporter Craig Shoup by email at cshoup@gannett.com and on X @Craig_Shoup. To support his work, sign up for a digital subscription to www.tennessean.com.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: NWS in Nashville works to help inform public amid funds cuts
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