Meteorologist Gives Chilling Example Of How Trump Cuts Could Hurt Predictions
An Emmy-winning TV meteorologist of over three decades is sounding the alarm on the Trump administration's unprecedented cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ahead of what is expected to be an intense 2025 hurricane season.
Florida's John Morales, forecaster at Miami-based news station NBC6, spoke about the changes Sunday by pointing to the accuracy of a report he was able to give six years ago.
Morales played a clip of himself speaking about Hurricane Dorian, which followed the coastline up Florida and along the Southeastern U.S. in 2019. Initially, its movements made it appear like it was on track to smash right into South Florida.
'There is a lot of anxiety out there, because you don't see it turning,' he said at the time.
'It's going to turn,' he said calmly.
As the broadcast cut back to a live feed, Morales recalled the confidence he had been able to project back then, despite fears from the community.
'I am here to tell you that I am not sure I can do that this year,' Morales told viewers.
'Because of the cuts, the gutting, the sledgehammer attack on science in general,' he went on, 'And I could talk about that for a long, long time, and how that is affecting the U.S. leadership in science over many years, and how we're losing that leadership and this is a multi-generational impact on science in this country.'
He added, 'But, specifically, let's talk about the federal government cuts to the national weather service and to NOAA.'
President Donald Trump and adviser Elon Musk's efforts to cut federal spending on what they consider 'waste, fraud and abuse' led the so-called Department of Government Efficiency to eliminate hundreds of NOAA jobs this year, including many within the National Weather Service.
Project 2025 — the blueprint for a second Trump term that he has tried to denounce even as its plans become reality — outlines more extreme disruptions, including the total dismantling of NOAA.
'I think people are nervous and very scared to see what happens next,' a general forecaster at the National Weather Service told HuffPost back in March, after the job cuts, noting that hurricane season picks up in mid-summer.
'Everything people see on TV or hear from The Weather Channel, all that information comes from the National Weather Service,' the employee said. 'We're the ones behind the scenes that you may not see.'
The administration did not boost confidence when it emerged that the new head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which handles post-hurricane damage, said Monday that he was not aware the country had a hurricane season. (The agency later said the comment was a joke.)
Morales told viewers on Sunday that NWS offices in Central and South Florida were 19% to 39% understaffed, and that there has been a 17% drop in weather balloon launches, resulting in less data.
'And what we're starting to see is that the quality of the forecasts is becoming degraded,' Morales said, adding that hurricane-hunting planes may also be affected.
'With less reconnaissance missions, we may be flying blind, and we may not exactly know how strong a hurricane is before reaching the coastline,' he said.
The meteorologist had more to say in a written piece published over the weekend. During an extreme weather event, skeleton staff at the nation's weather agencies might be at risk of making mistakes or overlooking data simply due to exhaustion.
'Am I worried? You bet I am!' he wrote.
He provided an example of how such mistakes can have a devastating impact: Hurricane Otis, which made landfall near Acapulco, Mexico, in 2023. The storm had drastically more intense wind speeds than predicted, Morales said, in part because there had not been 'timely reconnaissance data' from hurricane-hunting flights.
Morales urged viewers to contact their congressional representatives to demand an end to the cuts.
CNN Meteorologist Rings Alarm After Trump Targets Weather Agency: 'There Will Be Chaos'
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FEMA Head Said He Was Unaware Of U.S. Hurricane Season: Report
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