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Summary
The Trump administration has fired hundreds of employees at NOAA, the U.S.’s top climate research agency, affecting probationary workers, a categorization that applies to new hires or those moved or promoted into new positions.
Critics, including NOAA veterans and lawmakers, call the move “cruel” and warn it endangers weather forecasting, climate research, and public safety.
Senator Chris Van Hollen deemed the mass firings illegal, while scientists and policymakers condemned the decision.
Former NOAA officials argue the cuts lack justification and will harm national security and disaster preparedness. The administration has not commented.
Well crap. Knew it was coming but still.
Anyone know of a good weather service that doesn’t rely on NOAA?
None of them.
There are private companies that run a lot of their own independent forecasting models e.g AccuWeather, but all of them almost exclusively rely on NOAA’s scientific models, experimental tests, weather balloons, satellites, sensor stations, etc for input data to forecast anything useful.
Yeah. Even if they employ their own meteorologists, they’re still interpreting the maps and imagery from government satellites and weather stations. You take those away, and AccuWeather can’t afford to stay in business.
The Norwegian Meteorological Institute has good data and a great data sharing policy:
Fun fact: They are the default weather data provider for Home Assistant!
But that work only if the USA share its data freely to others… and of course Trump asked 2 weeks ago these agency to stop doing that.