It took four months for the Trump administration to cut more than 600 National Weather Service employees from the federal payroll through firing the newest employees, buyouts and early retirements.
It could take much longer to restore the agency’s operational strength, something Congress has called for and the administration this summer indicated it would do. In recent weeks, NWS took a step forward, posting job advertisements for key meteorologist positions across the country.
Many NWS observers have said the agency lacked adequate staff even before the recent personnel losses. Deadly extreme weather disasters over the summer highlighted the importance of federal forecasters, such as the more than 130 people killed this July in the Guadalupe River flash flooding in Texas.
Since June, NOAA has committed to hiring as many as 576 new employees to fill critical positions. That process has been slow to gain traction since June, when the Trump administration exempted NWS from a 10-month hiring freeze to hire 126 “mission critical” positions at understaffed forecast offices around the country.
