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Yeah, we are continuing to follow

0:52

up on some of this storm

0:54

damage that really has hit Kentucky.

0:56

We're currently in Estle County on

0:58

Furnace Junction Drive. Take a look

1:00

at this home behind me. It

1:02

has been absolutely crushed by a

1:04

tree. There were two earlier this

1:06

month. A series of powerful storms

1:08

ripped across the plains Midwest and

1:10

South, causing severe damage in Tennessee,

1:12

Missouri and Kentucky. The National Weather

1:14

Service confirms four tornadoes in middle

1:16

Tennessee from Thursday night's weather system.

1:18

Wind speeds of up to 110

1:20

miles per hour were reported, snapping

1:22

hundreds of trees and causing

1:24

roof damage to homes. Multiple

1:26

people were killed in Tennessee, Missouri

1:28

and Indiana. Powerful storms spawned

1:30

dozens of tornadoes, and as people clean

1:33

up and assess the damage, a

1:35

new line of powerful thunderstorms is moving

1:37

through this weekend. Typically, when

1:39

severe weather hits, A constellation

1:42

of experts comes together, many

1:44

of whom work for the

1:46

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or

1:48

NOAA. They're coordinating with the

1:50

national offices. They're coordinating with

1:52

emergency responders, with emergency managers.

1:55

We're coordinating with all sorts

1:57

of people to make sure

1:59

the word gets out that the

2:01

warnings are correct and timely and accurate. Daniel

2:04

Swain is a weather and

2:06

climate scientist with the University of

2:08

California Agricultural and Natural Resources. When

2:11

I called up Daniel, I wanted

2:13

to ask him about these storms because

2:15

I'd heard that the local office of

2:17

the National Weather Service in Louisville didn't

2:19

conduct a typical poststorm survey. Well,

2:21

that's my understanding as well, and

2:23

although it has been really difficult to

2:25

get official confirmation of the whys

2:27

surrounding any number of pretty conspicuous events

2:29

recently in the Water Service at

2:31

NOAA that appear to be related to

2:33

critical understaffing, essentially the fact that

2:35

there simply aren't enough personnel to do

2:38

all of the duties that are

2:40

required to be done, that is what

2:42

the reporting has said about that

2:44

specific situation as well. And there's plenty

2:46

of evidence this is a much

2:48

more widespread problem right now. Basically,

2:54

because of the Trump administration's cuts to

2:56

NOAA and the National Weather Service,

2:58

there aren't enough people to do these

3:00

jobs in weather offices all across

3:02

the country. And it's not

3:04

just post -storm surveys that are being eliminated. Some

3:07

of the most basic forecasting is

3:09

not happening either. Take

3:11

weather balloons, for example. Normally.

3:14

National Weather Service staffers routinely launch

3:16

what are called radio sands. These

3:18

small devices float up with the

3:20

balloons to measure all kinds of

3:22

weather conditions. And essentially, the

3:24

calculus has been made that that is not

3:26

the best use of two to four person

3:28

hours of time, even though it is an

3:30

objectively very important thing to be doing. We've

3:33

also heard that certain weather offices in

3:35

the US are no longer able to answer

3:37

the phone. I mentioned that was a

3:40

critical function. That's a pretty

3:42

basic and kind of amazing capability

3:44

that historically you could just call up

3:46

your local meteorologist at the weather

3:48

service and get a response from a

3:50

trained certified meteorologist who's knowledgeable about

3:52

your own local area. That's

3:54

no longer the case. During that

3:56

same tornado and flood outbreak

3:58

in Kentucky and the central .S.,

4:00

There's one weather office in particular,

4:02

I believe it was the

4:04

one in Paducah, Kentucky, where

4:06

the plumbing had failed some weeks

4:09

before the tornado outbreak, and there

4:11

was no ability for the government

4:13

to repair the toilets. And so,

4:15

literally, in this case, there were

4:17

national weather service meteorologists who had

4:19

no facilities to use but a

4:21

port -a -potty in the parking lot

4:23

during a literal tornado outbreak and

4:25

major flood event. Today

4:30

on The Show, the decimation

4:32

of NOAA, the National Weather Service,

4:35

and what happens to Americans when

4:37

the best storm prediction centers in

4:39

the country are gutted. I'm

4:41

Lizzie O 'Leary, and you're listening to What

4:43

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4:45

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6:06

want to back up a little

6:08

bit and kind of walk through

6:10

some of the cuts and funding

6:12

decisions we have seen and then

6:15

the effects of those. Since

6:17

March, hundreds of employees from

6:20

the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,

6:22

NOAA have been laid off or

6:24

been subject to some of these

6:26

reductions in force. A

6:29

lot of that includes cuts to

6:31

the National Weather Service. When

6:33

all of this started, what

6:36

was your reaction? Well,

6:39

my initial reaction was, well, I

6:41

guess we are doing exactly what

6:43

was described in Project 2025. It

6:46

specifically mentioned that NOAA was

6:48

the, I believe this is a

6:50

direct quote, the mouthpiece of

6:52

the climate alarm industry, and that

6:54

the weather service should be

6:56

dramatically downsized and downscaled. And the

6:58

problem is that we are

7:00

now seeing a lot of this

7:02

take shape. And so what

7:04

we're seeing, and my

7:06

initial reaction to this has

7:08

been not. Shock or

7:10

surprise really just deep dismay because it

7:12

was pretty clear this was this

7:15

was on the list of priorities and

7:17

It appears to be headed in

7:19

that direction and of course the cuts

7:21

we've seen so far Especially if

7:23

this document is taken to be a

7:25

policy Blueprint which it certainly seems

7:27

to be in many respects This is

7:29

just the beginning of the cuts

7:31

that may yet still be to come

7:33

and therefore the harm and disruption

7:36

that may yet still be to come

7:38

I think we saw a preview

7:40

of that last week with the

7:42

leak of the passback document regarding

7:44

next year's budget. Think of

7:46

a passback as part of a

7:48

negotiation between federal agencies and the

7:50

Office of Management and Budget. An

7:53

agency will ask for a certain

7:55

amount of money. The OMB will respond

7:57

with its own number. That's the passback. like

8:00

a working list of a White House's

8:02

funding priorities. According to

8:04

the leaked passback, the Trump

8:06

administration would essentially eliminate

8:08

an entire NOAA office, the

8:10

Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Office.

8:13

This office funds studies into

8:15

weather and climate and events

8:18

like flooding and wildfires. The

8:20

OAR has 10 research labs

8:22

and 16 affiliated cooperative institutes

8:24

across the country. The proposal

8:26

would completely eliminate this office

8:28

at NOAA and therefore virtually

8:30

all of the weather and

8:32

climate research and disaster related

8:35

research that that comes from

8:37

it and also all of

8:39

these freestanding essentially federal government

8:41

labs all around the country.

8:43

I'm sitting here today about

8:45

a quarter mile from one

8:47

of those labs and Boulder,

8:49

Colorado, and it's a huge

8:51

facility. I mean, it produces an

8:53

enormous volume of research not only on

8:55

climate change, which seems to be

8:57

one of the reasons or motivations behind

8:59

some of these proposed cuts, but

9:02

also things, again, as I mentioned,

9:04

day -to -day weather, tornado outbreaks, heat

9:06

waves, floods, hurricanes. And

9:08

so, you know, all of this

9:11

is really critical to the ability

9:13

for us to understand how weather

9:15

works, improve our weather predictions, let

9:17

alone understand climate change. When

9:20

there are so few people

9:22

in these offices and when

9:24

a major weather event like

9:27

this happens, what

9:29

is lost? What

9:31

do communities suffer? Well,

9:34

I think some of the

9:36

what is lost is is not

9:38

obvious in the moment You

9:40

know, I'm sitting here today in

9:42

my home office and it's

9:44

a partly cloudy day and it's

9:46

about 70 degrees in breezy

9:49

There's probably not a lot of

9:51

economic harm or or harm

9:53

to life and property that's going

9:55

to come from Understaffing on

9:57

a day like today necessarily although

9:59

I think even there we

10:01

might underestimate it but where the

10:03

rubber really meets the road

10:05

where these the critical understaffing and

10:07

the inability to get this

10:09

initial condition weather information through reduced

10:11

observations and communications breakdowns potentially

10:13

as these accelerate, where these

10:15

are really going to pose problems is when

10:17

the weather isn't like I just described today, when

10:19

it isn't calm and benign. And even though,

10:21

of course, extreme weather

10:23

is less common than benign

10:25

or ordinary weather, it

10:27

can be hugely destructive and

10:29

deadly. And at the

10:31

margins, even relatively, incremental decrease

10:33

in the ability of

10:35

weather forecasters with the Weather

10:37

Service to offer 24 -7

10:39

-365 life and property protection

10:41

services, which is essentially

10:43

what they're doing and what

10:45

they're mandated to do

10:47

through the congressional mandate to

10:49

fund the organization, then

10:52

that is where We start

10:54

to see the potential for lives

10:56

lost for damage wrought and

10:58

economic harm done that would not

11:00

have been done otherwise. Just

11:03

think about this year alone. A

11:05

record -breaking snowstorm in January, a

11:08

violent central plane storm in March that

11:10

killed at least 42 people over the

11:12

course of a weekend. Not

11:14

to mention the LA fires. Still,

11:17

Daniel says, lives were

11:19

saved because of weather predictions.

11:22

The LA fires, for example, it's

11:24

very likely that that situation would

11:26

have been significantly worse even than

11:28

the catastrophe that unfolded because there

11:30

were really good predictions in advance

11:32

of an extreme wind event preceded

11:34

by record dryness and extremely critical

11:36

fire risk that triggered pre -positioning of

11:38

firefighting resources, closures of parks and

11:40

open areas. People couldn't park on

11:42

the narrow streets and the hills

11:44

of LA to make sure fire

11:46

trucks could get in and out.

11:48

All of that was on the

11:50

basis of a national or the

11:52

service predictions. But what happens if

11:54

the National Weather Service can't track

11:56

all these storms if they're so

11:58

understaffed or their infrastructure and computers

12:01

aren't maintained? Once that starts

12:03

to break down, then even if you

12:05

have the personnel locally, they might not have

12:07

the tools and the information that they

12:09

need to make those accurate forecasts if the

12:11

weather radar goes down in a moment

12:13

where you didn't have those balloon launches. Again,

12:16

not an implausible scenario in

12:18

the Midwest during a tornado

12:20

outbreak and we are again

12:22

in peak tornado season. That's

12:24

the kind of situation that

12:26

could be directly life -threatening

12:28

and certainly economy -threatening. And

12:30

that's just at the extremes. You know, the

12:32

other purpose of no on the weather service

12:34

and weather prediction in general, it's not just

12:36

to avert harm, although I would argue that's

12:39

maybe the most important thing from my perspective,

12:41

but it's also to increase efficiency, ironically. Think

12:44

about logistics companies and airlines. Think

12:46

about why if you've taken the same

12:48

flight twice, it's usually not exactly

12:50

the same path. And there are other

12:52

reasons, but the primary one is

12:54

that the airline is using weather information,

12:56

weather predictions to route the plane

12:58

in a way that uses the least

13:00

amount of So you're not flying

13:02

directly into the strongest headwind, for example.

13:04

So that's a case where, you

13:06

know, obviously aviation safety depends on weather,

13:08

but also just efficiency. Saving money,

13:11

burning less fuel, economic efficiency is one

13:13

of the main things that's driven

13:15

by effective weather forecasts. When

13:20

we come back, remember,

13:22

hurricane season starts

13:24

June 1st. This

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pace, transfer credits and other

15:01

factors. NOAA and its adjacent offices are

15:04

not the only federal departments that

15:06

work on weather and climate research. NASA

15:08

also does and is also

15:10

at risk. something like a

15:12

top -line 50 % cut to

15:14

NASA, for example, is

15:16

in the same budget, which

15:18

would virtually eliminate most Earth science

15:21

and planetary science research. And

15:23

again, the Earth that we live

15:25

on is the subject of

15:27

most planetary science that is funded.

15:29

We live on a planet, by the

15:31

way. So the

15:34

broader picture is that Weather

15:36

and climate science generally advanced

15:38

rapidly over the 20th century

15:40

and has continued to do

15:42

so into the first quarter

15:44

of the 21st. Almost all

15:47

of that advancement in the

15:49

20th century was funded by

15:51

the American government, so through

15:53

taxpayer dollars, through At

15:55

various points in time, depending

15:57

on who sort of the

15:59

organizational structure within the US

16:01

federal service, NOAA or NASA

16:03

or the Department of Energy

16:06

or the National Science Foundation

16:08

or the US Department of

16:10

Agriculture, the three big ones

16:12

for climate are generally NOAA,

16:14

NASA, and also NSF. The

16:16

National Science Foundation. Thank

16:18

you. And these have all been

16:20

in the news in the past

16:22

week for either actual observed and widening

16:26

decimation of research priorities and

16:28

profiles and just the number of

16:30

funded grants or for proposed

16:32

essential elimination of the research that

16:34

they do. So the bigger

16:36

picture is that the U .S.

16:38

It has arguably provided, you know,

16:40

not just a public service

16:42

to Americans, but to the world

16:44

over the decade that it

16:47

heavily invested in weather and climate

16:49

research. Most of the big

16:51

weather models and climate models that

16:53

exist today were developed in

16:55

large part in the United States

16:57

using federal funding, not 100 %

16:59

of course. And now this

17:01

is starting to shift a bit

17:03

as other countries are now

17:05

preferentially investing more. The fact that

17:07

we have good weather forecasts

17:09

is largely because the United States

17:12

government invested in that capacity

17:14

for decades, and all of that

17:16

is essentially at risk of

17:18

coming to a grinding halt. I

17:20

want to talk a

17:22

little bit about the follow

17:24

-on impacts of some of

17:26

the models created by the

17:29

National Weather Service to

17:31

generate hourly and daily weather

17:33

forecasts. We talked about

17:35

transportation, we talked

17:37

about the airline sector,

17:39

but you know,

17:42

farmers, water managers,

17:44

people who work in agriculture. There

17:46

are a lot

17:49

of industries that rely

17:51

on accurate forecasting. Is

17:54

it possible to

17:56

spin out whether

17:58

accurate forecasting will

18:00

exist? how

18:03

it may or may

18:05

not keep pace with

18:07

extreme weather events over

18:09

the spring and summer?

18:13

Well, I think every single

18:15

industry on earth depends on

18:17

accurate weather predictions, whether people

18:19

who operate in those industries realize it

18:21

or not. But also, even just day to

18:23

day, I think there's so much that

18:26

goes on behind the scenes with electricity

18:28

markets and heating and cooling and logistics

18:30

and the distribution of goods getting, you know,

18:32

you just getting from one place to another.

18:34

I mean, just think about your own daily

18:36

life in deciding what you're going to

18:38

wear for the day. When am I going

18:40

to leave for work? Is the bus going

18:42

to be late? Is there going to be

18:45

bad traffic on the freeway? Is my

18:47

flight going to be delayed? And

18:49

so it's everywhere ubiquitously,

18:51

whether we recognize it or

18:53

not. And I think,

18:56

in fact, it's so embedded in everything

18:58

that it almost has become one

19:00

of those things that is truly indispensable

19:02

and yet is often invisible precisely

19:04

because it is so deeply integrated into

19:06

everything we do every day. So,

19:09

you know, I can't imagine

19:11

that there's a future where we

19:13

don't have weather forecasts in

19:15

the US. I don't think that's

19:17

realistically what's going to happen.

19:19

If for no other reason than

19:21

there's just such an extreme economic

19:24

need for basic functionality

19:26

of society. But

19:28

could they become severely degraded and

19:30

could they become degraded in

19:32

a way that is preferentially problematic

19:34

during destructive or extreme events?

19:36

I think that's very much a

19:38

possibility. Do we

19:41

stop having progress in improving

19:43

weather predictions and understanding

19:45

climate change? On our

19:47

current trajectory, that's very much a

19:49

possibility. Do we seed leadership? Historically,

19:52

the United States was arguably

19:54

the global leader in understanding the

19:56

weather and climate in our

19:58

global atmosphere. The US is not

20:00

the only country that tracks weather on

20:02

a global scale. The European

20:05

Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasts provides

20:07

this information and is supported by

20:09

most countries in Europe. But what they

20:11

don't have are specialized tornado and

20:13

seabird thunderstorm models for the US Great

20:15

Plains, or specialized hurricane models for

20:17

the Gulf Coast, like the Weather Service

20:19

and NOAA does because that's the

20:21

kind of problems that we have in

20:23

this particular country. And, you

20:25

know, that's not something that's necessarily in

20:27

the interest of other countries to do

20:29

a really good job predicting exactly whether

20:31

a hurricane is going to make landfall

20:34

near Houston or western Louisiana or whether

20:36

a tornado outbreak is going to affect

20:38

western Nebraska. That could go away too.

20:40

You know, there's a proposal to close

20:42

a lot of these field offices and

20:44

consolidate in a place like DC, for

20:46

example. So. There is much

20:49

to be lost, even though, you know,

20:51

I don't think it's the end of

20:53

weather forecasting. I think that would be,

20:55

but, you know, is it, could it

20:57

spell the end of American leadership in

20:59

weather forecasting and climb prediction? It could.

21:01

Could it mean that Americans have worse

21:03

weather predictions and less reliable, severe weather

21:05

warnings than we've become accustomed to and

21:07

that our economy and our daily lives

21:09

have sort of integrated and take for

21:11

granted? I think that that is a

21:13

distinct possibility on our current path. I

21:15

covered. the aftermath of Hurricane

21:17

Katrina and Hurricane Rita. And

21:20

it is not lost on

21:22

me that Atlantic hurricane season starts

21:24

June 1st. Listening to you, it

21:27

also sounds like Americans

21:29

may die because of this.

21:31

Is that going too

21:33

far? Is that saying too

21:35

much? No, I

21:37

don't think that's an exaggeration. Given

21:40

the cuts that have already occurred, but

21:42

especially given the cuts that appear to

21:44

still be coming, larger

21:47

ones, it is highly plausible

21:49

that there will eventually be cases where

21:51

people will die who didn't have to

21:53

die, who would not have died. Were

21:55

there a better prediction or a

21:57

more timely warning or something like that?

22:00

And it's difficult to predict exactly

22:02

where and when, and we probably won't

22:04

ever be able to quantify it

22:06

exactly because, you know, in a particular

22:08

severe weather event, unfortunately, even with

22:10

the best forecast, sometimes there are still

22:12

casualties. But It's very likely that

22:14

as you start to degrade predictive capacity,

22:16

if you have fewer observations upstream

22:18

going into these predictive models to provide

22:20

these forecasts, and if you then

22:22

also have fewer personnel with their eyes

22:24

glued to the radar screen, or

22:26

if the radar screen is empty because

22:28

the radar went down and there's

22:30

no one available to fix it, which

22:32

is, these are all examples of

22:35

things that are actually happening right now.

22:37

that if they happen in the wrong place

22:39

at the wrong time, which is becoming

22:41

increasingly likely the longer these cuts persist or

22:43

the deeper they become, then yes, that

22:45

is likely to be an outcome eventually, as

22:47

much as I hate to say it. If

22:51

you are listening

22:53

to this and you

22:55

are scared or

22:57

horrified and you don't

22:59

know what to

23:01

do, are

23:03

there things you suggest? I

23:07

think this is

23:09

one interesting area where

23:11

despite the chaos

23:13

and all the N

23:16

-Rens around the usual

23:18

guardrails and the

23:20

usual constraints to rapid

23:22

shifts that are

23:25

not approved by Congress,

23:28

There does appear to still be a very

23:30

important role for public pressure in this

23:32

I know a lot of people have been

23:34

in contact in their local Congress people

23:36

many of whom really just have not been

23:38

aware in some cases some are more

23:40

aware than others but a lot of them

23:42

have not been aware of the scope

23:45

of the actual proposed cuts or why they're

23:47

so critically important and what is what

23:49

is at stake what is directly at stake

23:51

like as soon as you know the

23:53

coming days and weeks potentially And

23:55

this has been true, to my understanding,

23:57

both in red and blue states and

23:59

red and blue parts of red and

24:01

blue states, where there's just not a

24:03

lot of understanding of the importance of

24:05

the water service, the

24:07

fact that it is essentially a

24:10

world -class public utility that, you know,

24:12

of a quality that doesn't really

24:14

exist in any other country, the

24:16

U .S. has it, and we're

24:18

trying really hard to keep it.

24:20

In many ways, it's the envy

24:22

of the world in terms of

24:25

meteorological services. So understanding that,

24:28

this is a case where there's

24:30

already been some reversals of

24:32

cuts, at least temporarily, on the

24:34

basis essentially of public pressure. I

24:37

think the diplomatic term being used

24:39

by NOAA is an outpouring of public

24:41

support, which is true, actually, but

24:43

Also what it really means is that

24:45

a lot of people got angry

24:47

and talked to the right people about

24:49

it. The only silver lining I

24:51

can think of to unilateral decision making

24:53

is that I suppose those decisions

24:56

can be reversed quickly too. So

24:58

I think that's one big piece

25:00

of this is talk about it,

25:02

talk to your local and congressional

25:04

representatives about what the value is,

25:06

why it's so important, to

25:09

the economy, why it's

25:11

so important to protect the lives

25:13

and the communities that you live

25:15

in and care about, and

25:17

why it would just

25:19

be massively inefficient and

25:21

wasteful to get rid

25:23

of this hugely effective

25:25

and massively beneficial system

25:27

that we've got. Daniel

25:35

Swain, as always, I'm

25:37

really grateful for your time and thank you for coming on. Thanks

25:40

again for having me back. Daniel

25:44

Swain is a weather and

25:46

climate scientist with the University

25:48

of California Agriculture and Natural

25:50

Resources. And that's it for

25:52

our show today. What Next TBD is

25:54

produced by Shayna Roth, Patrick Fort and

25:56

Evan Campbell. Our show is edited by

25:58

Rob Gunther. Slate is

26:00

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26:18

we'll be back next week with more episodes.

26:20

I'm Lizzie O 'Leary. Thanks for listening.