What a lovely photo! I really support the meteorological community and hope you are doing okay yourself Aaron. These are dark days now and it's not due to clouds or time of year.
No, it's due to the current administration, and there's talk of shutting down the Weather Service, and weather companies privatizing the government weather data and charging us for that data. Without the NWS, even the private forecasters that work for radio and TV stations wouldn't be able to forecast weather. Even though they make their own forecasts, where do you suppose they get their data from to help make their forecasts? They get it from the NWS!! Without the NWS, you will not have radar, satellite, and models and charts or graphs as we know them NOW. We may have to rely on the country's suite of TV radars at TV stations; the NWS mosaic of national digital radar may need to be replaced by a mosaic of the nation's TV radars. We might have to rely on the European or Japanese weather satellites. We may have to rely on the ECMWF model or the European model or the German ICON. At any rate, the quality of forecasting would deteriorate quickly; without the NWS, you cannot have watches and warnings, and at least not for free. Without watches and warnings, you will have to look at those TV radars to see what storms are coming your way. Without the NWS, NOAA Weather Radio would go away. Your tone-alert NOAA Weather Radio would be nothing but a new paperweight. I don't even know what you'd get on them. You might have to listen to amateur radio on a CB, walkie talkie, or a ham radio. Without NOAA Weather Radio, people may end up buying CB's or getting licenses to operate HAM radios. After all, people will be needed to communicate ground truth about impending storms. Storm chasers will continue to be needed to stream their storm chasing trips online. It's even possible that channels like the Weather Channel may go away. Which means you may have to rely on YouTube or other social sites for storm chasing. Of course, TV stations will be reduced to just their TV radars, web cams, storm chasers for live storm investigations and monitoring; the TV stations can't give out watches and warnings even if there was no NWS. So in the case of hurricanes and twisters, TV stations would have to extend their live storm coverage more so than they do today, to keep you informed in a weather emergency. Radio and TV will always try to keep you informed with just their regular newscasts, including weather emergencies. Hurricanes would require going back to 1960s' style additional evacuations like in the "old days". Weather forecasting would be set back 50 to 60 years in this country. This would result in increases in average death tolls from hurricanes, twisters, even thunderstorms, as well as blizzards, heat waves, cold waves, etc. The NWS heat risk map would no longer be available. Some other entity would have to create their own heat risk map, which wouldn't be as accurate as the NWS's map. If somebody in the current administration in D.C. were to see and read this posting, they just might realize what's gonna happen and realize hey, folks......We better not do this. There's too much at stake here. We need the NWS. The NWS is not government waste, fraud or abuse. It's an essential service for the protection of life and property. Then maybe any talk of this happening would be quickly shut down, and the NWS would be saved. Already, fired forecasters currently mean that there's not people there to work on improving the models, or to repair any supercomputers that make the models. That's just the beginning. If radars go down, there may not be people available to repair and maintain radars. If the GOES imagery has problems or goes down, we wouldn't be getting updates from the GOES or what if the UCAR goes down? These are things that can happen NOW, well before any NWS shutdown ever happened. Anyway, I hope the administration has the foresight to realize we need to maintain this vital service, as it's needed to protect the economy, farmers, fishermen, aviation, shipping and boating, and much, much more!! It is time to save the NWS, improve the NWS, and make the NWS great again!!
I've posted everywhere I can on this subject. You know where I live and we desperately need the NWS and NOAA. All those tornadoes in other areas, yeah they badly need it. The entire country needs it for various reasons, not all the same and this administration is deaf to reality.
Yes, we need it for all the reasons I have outlined in the comment. Were the NWS ever to announce a shutdown, and just for a hypothetical scenario, suppose we were to wake up one of these mornings fairly soon and get breaking news that due to mass firings from the DOGE cuts, the NWS will permanently cease operations in the U.S. at midnight local time on June 30th, in our hypothetical scenario. In this hypothetical scenario, the last public government forecasts from one to 10 days out, would be given that evening. The last watches and warnings would be issued that evening, and in this example, an unusually strong tornado outbreak is taking place that day in the Midwest and Ohio Valley. Imagine at midnight local time, all Doppler NWS radars go dark, and no more model updates except hopefully the European or ICON, or Canadian models. At midnight Eastern, the Weather Channel, the AccuWeather Channel, and Weather Nation all sign off the air. NOAA Weather Radio goes silent at midnight local time. At midnight a mosaic of TV radars coast to coast pops up online. At least you STILL could see the storms being tracked. However, we would lose a great voice of authority in NOAA Weather Radio and Nature of course doesn't care what the weather service becomes; they may go away but the bad weather wouldn't. It would continue doing its' thing, and scores and scores might die without that voice of authority or watches and warnings. Just that first day alone would be a disaster due to higher death and injury tolls than normal. I would hope that such a scenario would be a teaching moment, and make people realize what would happen. This is just a hypothetical. Let's keep it that way so that it will NEVER happen!!
Excellent!! I recommend you copy your comment and Post it to Substack Notes. Then to Bluesky. I can help you with the latter if you are unfamiliar with the process.
Your daughter is as cute as can be! Thank you so much for this newsletter and for amplifying the work of NOAA. Tough times for sure, but I do know that our weather professionals are resilient and determined. That gives me hope!
What a lovely photo! I really support the meteorological community and hope you are doing okay yourself Aaron. These are dark days now and it's not due to clouds or time of year.
No, it's due to the current administration, and there's talk of shutting down the Weather Service, and weather companies privatizing the government weather data and charging us for that data. Without the NWS, even the private forecasters that work for radio and TV stations wouldn't be able to forecast weather. Even though they make their own forecasts, where do you suppose they get their data from to help make their forecasts? They get it from the NWS!! Without the NWS, you will not have radar, satellite, and models and charts or graphs as we know them NOW. We may have to rely on the country's suite of TV radars at TV stations; the NWS mosaic of national digital radar may need to be replaced by a mosaic of the nation's TV radars. We might have to rely on the European or Japanese weather satellites. We may have to rely on the ECMWF model or the European model or the German ICON. At any rate, the quality of forecasting would deteriorate quickly; without the NWS, you cannot have watches and warnings, and at least not for free. Without watches and warnings, you will have to look at those TV radars to see what storms are coming your way. Without the NWS, NOAA Weather Radio would go away. Your tone-alert NOAA Weather Radio would be nothing but a new paperweight. I don't even know what you'd get on them. You might have to listen to amateur radio on a CB, walkie talkie, or a ham radio. Without NOAA Weather Radio, people may end up buying CB's or getting licenses to operate HAM radios. After all, people will be needed to communicate ground truth about impending storms. Storm chasers will continue to be needed to stream their storm chasing trips online. It's even possible that channels like the Weather Channel may go away. Which means you may have to rely on YouTube or other social sites for storm chasing. Of course, TV stations will be reduced to just their TV radars, web cams, storm chasers for live storm investigations and monitoring; the TV stations can't give out watches and warnings even if there was no NWS. So in the case of hurricanes and twisters, TV stations would have to extend their live storm coverage more so than they do today, to keep you informed in a weather emergency. Radio and TV will always try to keep you informed with just their regular newscasts, including weather emergencies. Hurricanes would require going back to 1960s' style additional evacuations like in the "old days". Weather forecasting would be set back 50 to 60 years in this country. This would result in increases in average death tolls from hurricanes, twisters, even thunderstorms, as well as blizzards, heat waves, cold waves, etc. The NWS heat risk map would no longer be available. Some other entity would have to create their own heat risk map, which wouldn't be as accurate as the NWS's map. If somebody in the current administration in D.C. were to see and read this posting, they just might realize what's gonna happen and realize hey, folks......We better not do this. There's too much at stake here. We need the NWS. The NWS is not government waste, fraud or abuse. It's an essential service for the protection of life and property. Then maybe any talk of this happening would be quickly shut down, and the NWS would be saved. Already, fired forecasters currently mean that there's not people there to work on improving the models, or to repair any supercomputers that make the models. That's just the beginning. If radars go down, there may not be people available to repair and maintain radars. If the GOES imagery has problems or goes down, we wouldn't be getting updates from the GOES or what if the UCAR goes down? These are things that can happen NOW, well before any NWS shutdown ever happened. Anyway, I hope the administration has the foresight to realize we need to maintain this vital service, as it's needed to protect the economy, farmers, fishermen, aviation, shipping and boating, and much, much more!! It is time to save the NWS, improve the NWS, and make the NWS great again!!
I've posted everywhere I can on this subject. You know where I live and we desperately need the NWS and NOAA. All those tornadoes in other areas, yeah they badly need it. The entire country needs it for various reasons, not all the same and this administration is deaf to reality.
Yes, we need it for all the reasons I have outlined in the comment. Were the NWS ever to announce a shutdown, and just for a hypothetical scenario, suppose we were to wake up one of these mornings fairly soon and get breaking news that due to mass firings from the DOGE cuts, the NWS will permanently cease operations in the U.S. at midnight local time on June 30th, in our hypothetical scenario. In this hypothetical scenario, the last public government forecasts from one to 10 days out, would be given that evening. The last watches and warnings would be issued that evening, and in this example, an unusually strong tornado outbreak is taking place that day in the Midwest and Ohio Valley. Imagine at midnight local time, all Doppler NWS radars go dark, and no more model updates except hopefully the European or ICON, or Canadian models. At midnight Eastern, the Weather Channel, the AccuWeather Channel, and Weather Nation all sign off the air. NOAA Weather Radio goes silent at midnight local time. At midnight a mosaic of TV radars coast to coast pops up online. At least you STILL could see the storms being tracked. However, we would lose a great voice of authority in NOAA Weather Radio and Nature of course doesn't care what the weather service becomes; they may go away but the bad weather wouldn't. It would continue doing its' thing, and scores and scores might die without that voice of authority or watches and warnings. Just that first day alone would be a disaster due to higher death and injury tolls than normal. I would hope that such a scenario would be a teaching moment, and make people realize what would happen. This is just a hypothetical. Let's keep it that way so that it will NEVER happen!!
Excellent!! I recommend you copy your comment and Post it to Substack Notes. Then to Bluesky. I can help you with the latter if you are unfamiliar with the process.
I did, I posted to both Notes and Bluesky.
Congrats on 4,000, Aaron! Onward!
Your daughter is as cute as can be! Thank you so much for this newsletter and for amplifying the work of NOAA. Tough times for sure, but I do know that our weather professionals are resilient and determined. That gives me hope!
Great! That's s master class piece of advocacy