In the early morning of July 4, the deadliest sudden flood caused by nearly half a century of storm systems in the United States swept through the mountains of Texas (mountain countryside), killing more than 100 people, including 27 mysterious camps, a summer Christian training camp that provides school girls with nearly a century of activities along or near the Guadalup River.
The disaster has caused thorny questions about the cuts caused by the Department of Energy (Doge) layoffs and the cuts caused by the National Weather Service (NWS) forced resignation. Indeed, New Braunfels’ NWS office was responsible for issuing alerts, losing 22% of its staff. However, the office had “strengthening staff” during the event, with five forecasts instead of the usual two forecasts, according to the Associated Press. As Bob Henson and I wrote in our previous publications, the weather service showed admirable performance, sending out corresponding flood alerts and warnings.
But if we think that cutting cuts to institutions that serve weather services will not cause our ability to save our population to collapse, then we will tempt our luck. In particular, the losses of many experienced meteorological service leaders this year – people who have decades of knowledge about the specific climate vulnerabilities of different regions, are a serious risk to the mission of protecting people and their assets.
Earlier this year, the firing of all employees during the NOAA test meant that we had eaten the seeds: no new blood was used to replace the old guard. Even if the weather service resumes recruitment, it may be difficult to attract talent. Who would like to work for a government that doesn’t value science, where can they suddenly fire you without prior notice?
Staff shortage increases the risk of catastrophic results
As Bob Henson and I wrote at the start of the hurricane season, NOAA’s staff losses were huge – for staff layoffs during the trial period, the output incentives provided by the Department of Energy and early retirement left at least eight of the 122 National Meteorological Services unavailable for 24 hours. Due to personnel losses, routine launches are suspended twice a day in about 18% of the country’s launch sites, which is a crucial tool for preparing reliable forecasts. Some locations reduce their activity to daily launches, while several locations no longer perform launches.
The Washington Post reported that in the month ending May 26, 17% of all balloons planned in the U.S. were not performed, mainly due to the lack of staff from NOAA. Although the lack of these data does not appear to have a significant negative impact on the Texas flood forecast, it is almost certain that such data loss can seriously affect the quality of some forecasts for certain extreme weather events, including hurricanes that may hit the Gulf Coast Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Atlantic coast of the U.S. Atlantic Atlantic coast.
New NOAA budget to eliminate as a lab for key tools to predict sudden floods
The Texas tragedy is constantly disturbing similarities, with sudden floods sweeping the Great Thompson River in Colorado on July 31, 1976, killing 144 people. Like the July 4 flood, the Big Thompson flood occurred on a holiday – Colorado Centennial Weekend Saturday night, so more people comply and recreate in the narrow cannon. Due to technical issues, Denver's forecast ignored access radar data, and the rainfall dropped more than 12 inches (30 cm).
The Thompson disaster led to the creation of propaganda tools such as the “Climb to Safe” sign (up to safe land), which is common today on Colorado cannons. He has also facilitated research that elicited many current practices to issue sudden flood alerts, such as coordination between the National Meteorological Service and state and local authorities, which can save lives in the event of a disaster.
The National Laboratory of NOAA's Severe Storm (National Severe Storm Laboratory) in Norman, Oklahoma has developed and investigated the key tools for issuing sudden flood forecasts: Flash Projects (location of flooding and simulated hydrological maps), which improve accuracy, expected and special amounts of rainwater rides to improve the time of high-resolution rainfall (MRED MERTIAS). The program began operations in 2016 after researchers proved it was in flooding floods.
However, NOAA proposes to close all its laboratories in response to its new budget plan for 2026, including NSSL (founded in 1964) and other centers with long-term innovation and achievements. Among them are the two most important laboratories to improve hurricane predictions: AOML (Atlantic Oceanography and Meteorological Laboratory) and GFDL (Geophysical Dynamics Laboratory).
The reason comes from the “Project 2025,” which describes NOAA’s main research unit – the Office of Ocean and Atmospheric Research (OAR), which manages all of these laboratories – as “the source of most of NOAA’s climate shockism.”
As meteorologist Michael Lowry wrote today: “The main tools we use to predict sudden floods NSSL and related projects are destined to be eliminated based on the budget proposed by NOAA in 2026, which will be harmful to our ability to predict such live floods in the future.”
NOAA's new budget will destroy research on sudden floods
“We know everyone wants more warnings, which is why we are working to modernize long-term careless technology to ensure families receive the biggest warning ahead of time,” National Security Minister Kristi Noem announced on Saturday.
In his Monday statement, he reiterated the message, saying the weather service “has been working on implementing new technologies and new systems as it has been overlooked for years. It is an ancient system that needs to be updated and President Trump immediately recognized him and has been working since he made it in January. But the device is not yet completed and the technology is not fully implemented yet.” ”
It is not clear which system Noem refers to. But in reality, the proposed closure of the proposed National Severe Storm Laboratory (NSSL) will significantly reduce our ability to improve sudden flood forecasts, as this will eliminate three most promising research programs in the field. These include the above-mentioned flash memory program; aspects of the project (Predict continuous environmental threats), a new generation of prognostic and alert framework for all types of weather threats, will be modern, flexible and designed to clearly and easily convey information about climate hazards in order to better serve the public; and warn the legacy, whose purpose is to increase the expected time for alarms for tornadoes, severe storms and sudden floods.
In your announcement Weather balance In the bench attack, Alan Gerard, director of analysis and understanding of NSSL, wrote on Sunday: “Not only is the government not only doing what Secretary General Noem says is not only doing Noaa, but not only the opposite of NOAA, but also related to other federal scientific institutions, but also in other federal scientific institutions that undermine warning times that would actually improve technology and horrible events such as sudden flooding”.
Total destruction of weather research infrastructure
Why should we cut NOAA’s capabilities and national meteorological services to play life-saving predictions just when climate change makes extreme rainfall events more frequent and severe? Why do we undermine the ability to conduct the necessary research so that weather services can improve their forecasts for these extreme rainfall?
If Congress approves NOAA’s new proposed budget, the government research lab will be closed to develop the tools. This is not a simple cut, but a destruction of the basic infrastructure needed to conduct weather research, including improving hurricane forecasts. Even if the financing is completely restored next year, the goal of restoring this will take years or even decades. It's like flying a dam and then trying to rebuild it by hitting the debris by glue. It won't work. You have to start from scratch.
The reason given by the government is that it wants to privatize national meteorological services. This idea is Project 2025which states: “Study shows that forecasts and warnings issued by private companies are more reliable than those of the National Meteorological Service.” In support of the statement, Project 2025 He cites the 2020 Accuweather press release. In fact, most prognostic companies and television meteorologists depend heavily on weather models developed by the National Weather Service, and NOAA's analysis and discussions provide valuable information for the industry as a whole and the public.
However, if it does intend to privatize meteorological services, there must be an orderly transition to a new prognostic system that has been gradually implemented for several years. Otherwise, due to the lack of warnings, the risk of more deaths is caused by the extreme meteorological phenomena, which is due to the hasty cuts in NOAA and weather services.
There is no such plan.
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