Trump-Musk made staff shortages at the weather service worse

One NWS office went from a 32% vacancy rate to 59% under Trump

In the aftermath of DOGE and the Deluge — the horrific flood in Central Texas (121 confirmed dead, 170 still missing) — it’s reasonable for Americans, wherever they live, to wonder if the National Weather Service can still be relied upon for timely warnings about severe storms.

This is not something most of us even thought about until recently, though maybe we should have. There were staff vacancies in regional offices of the NWS before Trump took office in January.

But Trump and Musk made things worse.

In addition to the pre-existing staffing vacancies in regional offices, hundreds of NWS employees left or were forced out of the government after Trump took office. Musk and his DOGE brats slashed the agency, making arbitrary cuts and reducing the overall NWS workforce by 600.

That happened in the first 100 days of Trump’s second term and served as a “staggering shock to the system,” according to Tom Fahy, the legislative director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization, the union that represents many NWS staffers.

I was curious about staffing at the Sterling, Virginia office, where meteorologists make forecasts for the region that includes Baltimore, where I live.

Fahy provided the answer.

“Prior to January, the vacancy rate at Sterling was 16%,” he said. “As of April 30, it was 28%. … The Sterling office currently has 11 meteorologists on staff. The office has an overall vacancy rate of seven out of 25 employees.”

That doesn’t sound great — imagine being down seven in a relatively small company with 25 employees — but the vacancy rate is worse in other offices.

“Louisville, Kentucky was 13% [vacancy rate] before Trump and after Trump, it’s at 33,” Fahy said. “Then you take Jackson, Kentucky. The vacancy rate jumped from 18% before Trump to 41%. And then Hanford [California] in the San Joaquin Valley. A perfect NWS office is 13 meteorologists; we only have five there. The overall vacancy rate prior to January was 32%. After Trump, it’s 59%.”

Trump let Musk loose on the federal government and he cut agencies at random; there was no plan, no strategy for downsizing government where it might have made sense.

And it makes no sense to cut further into the understaffed National Weather Service at a time when the nation faces a constant threat of extreme weather.

The Musk cuts were so absurd that Trump made the NWS exempt from his hiring freeze and now the agency is looking to hire new staff to replace those who were either fired or decided to retire early.

It’s safe to say there’s been a brain drain at the NWS, and that those still on duty are likely working harder and longer to make up for the vacancies.

Messing with the government weather service, at a time when extreme weather threatens every part of the country, is dangerous. But it all flows from a president who thinks climate change is a hoax, who orders the government to muffle all climate alarms and who denigrates efforts to save the planet. You never hear Trump speak of America’s children and the world they will inherit, and that might be the worst of his many failings.