On June 1, the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season, longtime South Florida meteorologist John Morales warned viewers they may get less reliable forecasts this year, because of staffing cuts at the National Weather Service, a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA.

“There’s been a nearly 20% reduction in weather balloon releases, launches, that carry those radiosondes,” Morales told viewers of NBC 6 South Florida, referring to the instruments that measure and transmit atmospheric data from weather balloons. “What we’re starting to see is that the quality of the forecasts is being degraded.”

Morales also warned that NOAA’s hurricane hunters, who fly into storms to collect critical data, might make fewer flights.

“With less reconnaissance missions, we may be flying blind, and we may not exactly know how strong a hurricane is before it reaches the coastline,” he said. 

Morales is part of a rising chorus of meteorologists and climate experts warning that the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the federal workforce and downplay global warming could compromise accurate weather forecasts and climate monitoring.

The National Weather Service lost some 600 positions early in the second Trump administration, through early retirements and layoffs. Now the agency says it’s working to fill some “mission-critical” roles and “stabilize frontline operations.” But the Trump administration has also proposed cutting the larger NOAA budget by more than 25% next year.

Recently, five former directors of the National Weather Service wrote an open letter condemning the cuts. Louis Uccellini was director from 2013 to 2022, and signed the letter, which warned that the air travel, shipping, farming, and fishing industries could all be affected, in addition to public safety.

“Forecast offices have to be prepared for multiple events,” Uccellini told Marketplace. 

“I know there's a focus on hurricanes, as there rightfully should be, but I have to emphasize we're also in a severe weather season. We're also in a fire weather year — we don’t have fire weather seasons anymore.” 

Tom Skilling was a meteorologist at WGN in Chicago for 45 years. He said larger cuts to NOAA would mean less funding for the kind of research that led to innovations like Doppler radar, which revolutionized tornado forecasting.  

“What's being worked on now — and these are the kind of research studies that will be cut  — is to develop modeling down to the scale of a single thunderstorm cell,” Skilling said. “The goal is, at some point, to put out a tornado warning an hour ahead of time.”

The average lead time today is 11 to 16 minutes, Skilling said, and every extra minute of warning can save lives. In a statement NOAA said it’s committed to investing in new technology, but that could come down to the budget Congress approves.

“Hard working people will keep it going the best they can, as long as they can, but there's going to come a weather event where you really need the whole operation firing on all cylinders,” Skilling said of the larger weather forecast system. “The warning lights are flashing and there's reason to be concerned.”