Is there reason for concern about quality of weather forecasts?

By Tanka Dhakal

There is reason for concern about the quality of weather forecasts because of federal budget cuts, said Paul Staten, associate professor of Earth and Atmospheric Science at IU Bloomington.

“I think the real risk we're facing is that you won't have the expertise handy and available all the time to interpret things as they are going down, and to inform the public how to respond and to interface with decision makers,” he said.

“I think that is probably the largest immediate impact we'll see from the human resource shortage at the National Weather Service.”

He said funding cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is distressing.

But the National Weather Service said it doesn’t have any data to support those concerns.

Erica Grow-Cei, Public Affairs Specialist and Meteorologist at the NWS, said the agency is committed to providing quality weather coverage to emergency managers.

“The priority for each of our weather forecast offices is making sure that that information gets out there,” she said.

The National Weather Service has 122 weather forecast offices around the country, including two in Indiana. Many forecast offices have staffing vacancies.

“We have hiring actions underway at the National Weather Service, we have been granted an exception to the hiring freeze that's in place for the entire Department of Commerce to fill mission critical positions throughout the country,” Grow-Cei said.

However, Jeff Masters, who worked as a hurricane scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, wrote for the Yale Climate Connections that “cuts make forecasting harder.”