National Weather Service faces hurricane season with less experienced staff, missing data

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: CBS News

July 6, 2026 / 6:00 AM EDT


The National Weather Service is hiring to fill hundreds of predominantly entry-level positions, more than a year after losing about 15% of its staff due to sweeping job cuts and buyouts ordered by the Trump administration. Veteran meteorologists are cautiously optimistic about how an influx of workers could benefit the agency as storm season gets underway — and as people in the industry say vacancies may be impeding the collection of data that many see as vital for predicting extreme weather.

But the weather service's focus on recruiting early career scientists, as its job postings advertise, raises concerns for some former employees who believe their relative lack of experience could be reflected in the nation's forecasts, especially without more knowledgeable staff around to help train them.

"Obviously, people retiring and new people coming up is a natural part of any business or agency," said Alan Gerard, a meteorologist who worked for 35 years at the weather service and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, before retiring early last year. "But it's meant to be done in an organized process, where the new people coming in have the benefit of working for a period with people who are experienced and can help train them and build up their expertise."

Hurricane season started on June 1, overlapping with spring and summer months when tornadoes, flash flooding and wildfire outbreaks typically peak in the United States. For forecasters, it's one of the busiest and most critical periods of the year.

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/national-weather-service-hurricane-season-less-experienced-staff-missing-data/

[Bayard]

1. Don't worry

Sharpies are included in each new employee packet.

[ultralite001]

2. More on the "missing data"...

From the same article...

"Among the most urgent is the restoration of what's called "upper air" data, which Thoman and Gerard said has noticeably declined or degraded since January 2025.

The data is considered by many to be fundamental to forecasting models, particularly in scenarios where weather is changing rapidly. It has historically been collected by weather balloons, synced to launch twice daily from sites nationwide, and in other parts of the world, too.

Several U.S. weather stations no longer launch balloons twice daily, or at consistent morning and evening times, records show, which Cei said is "due to temporary resource and equipment constraints."

It's an unprecedented change, Gerard said.

"There's concern about the quality of the models because of the lack of upper air data," he said. "There's a lot of expression of just being less confident, and having less confidence in your data tends to undermine a lot of your operational decisions, right?"

[groundloop]

4. I know that my local forecast is far less accurate than it used to be..... thanks tRump and Eloon.

As a former private pilot and flight instructor I'm quite the weather nerd. I pay attention to those things.

[snot]

3. This is scary.

I live in an area that gets some violent weather, and forecasts can make a huge diffence in lives and property lost.

[llmart]

5. This is what has happened all across the government since those two idiots got involved.

Eloon and El Stoopido don't give a rat's ass if anyone is qualified to work in a department. The same thing happened at NASA where they let 20% of the experienced engineers/scientists go and now Isaacson is saying they can't reach the goals Dopey Don set for the moon landing because they don't have enough experienced people.

He screws up every thing he does.

[Racygrandma]

6. Mar-a-lago is still safe right

Fingers crossed

[WestMichRad]

7. Well, that meshes nicely with the lousy job they've done with timely tornado warnings

On a couple of occasions, NWS sites were offline when tornadic weather was crossing the region. In several instances, funnel clouds were reported by private weather watchers minutes before NWS issued warnings for the area… or warnings were never issued. People died. (Ex: Union City MI, 3 fatalities this spring with tornado that hit with no warning)