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The American Weather Forecast Is in Trouble

Layoffs at NOAA will only make weather reports less reliable.

As I reported last summer, Project 2025—the compendium of policy proposals published by the Heritage Foundation prior to the 2024 elections, several authors of which are now serving under President Donald Trump—stated that an incoming administration should all but dissolve the NOAA. Dan Satterfield, a veteran television meteorologist, told me on Bluesky that many times, he’d notice signs in the data that a storm could turn into a tornado, and that “NWS would have the warning out before I could get on air.” Hazelton worries what will happen to America’s ability to accurately predict hurricane behavior without him and his colleagues; he’s heard of a dozen other people who were cut from the Environmental Modeling Center last night.

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