During the last ten months, the National Weather Service saw significant decreases in staffing due to early retirements and layoffs associated with the downsizing of NOAA. The loss of experienced staff was especially concerning because of the worry about an active Atlantic hurricane season. Weather data was also lost as so many staff left that some stations no longer had enough personnel to launch weather balloons. Since that data is fed into the computer models that predict the weather, the lack of upper air data was concerning and some scientists were concerned about a loss of accuracy in the forecasts.
Fortunately, while the hurricane season had an average number of storms, the lack of a landfalling hurricane this season alleviated some of the concern about impacts. The National Weather Service also received permission to refill 450 open staff positions because of worries about the impact of personnel losses on severe storm and winter weather readiness. But so far only about 80 of those positions have been filled, although NOAA says they hope to have all of the openings filled by the end of 2026. You can read more about the staffing situation from CNN here.
