U.S. weather forecasts darken; experts say DOGE cuts will mean fewer balloon launches

WASHINGTON — With massive job cuts, the National Weather Service is eliminating or reducing vital weather balloon launches in eight northern locations, which meteorologists and former agency leaders said will degrade the accuracy of forecasts just as severe weather season kicks in.

The normally twice-daily launches of weather balloons in about 100 locations provide information that forecasters and computer models use to figure out what the weather will be and how dangerous it can get, so cutting back is a mistake, said eight different scientists, meteorologists and former top officials at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — the weather service’s parent agency.

The balloons soar 100,000 feet in the air with sensors called radiosondes hanging about 20 feet below them that measure temperature, dew point, humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed and direction.

“The thing about weather balloons is that they give you information you can’t get any other way,” said D. James Baker, a former NOAA chief during the Clinton administration. He had to cut spending at the agency during his tenure, but he said he refused to cut observations such as weather balloons. “It’s an absolutely essential piece of the forecasting system.”

University of Oklahoma environment professor Renee McPherson said, “This frankly is just dangerous.”

“Bad,” Ryan Maue, who was NOAA’s chief scientist at the end of President Donald Trump’s first term, wrote in an email. “We should not degrade our weather system by skipping balloon launches. Not only is this embarrassing for NOAA, the cessation of weather balloon launches will worsen America’s weather forecasts.”

Launches will be eliminated in Omaha, Neb., and Rapid City, S.D., “due to a lack of Weather Forecast Office staffing,” the weather service said in a notice issued late Thursday. It also is cutting from twice daily to once daily launches in Aberdeen, S.D.; Grand Junction, Colo.; Green Bay, Wis.; Gaylord, Mich.; North Platte, Neb.; and Riverton, Wyo.

The Trump administration and its Department of Government Efficiency fired hundreds, likely more than 1,000, NOAA workers earlier this year. The government then sent out letters telling probationary employees let go that they will get paid but should not report to work.

Earlier this month, the agency announced weather balloon cuts in Albany, N.Y., and Gray, Maine. In late February, it ended launches in Kotzebue, Alaska. That makes 11 announced sites with reduced or eliminated balloon observations, or about one out of nine launch locations which include part of the Pacific and Caribbean.

Among regularly reporting weather stations, NOAA had averaged about only one outage of balloon launches a day from 2021 to 2024, according to an Associated Press analysis of launch data.

Meteorologists Jeff Masters and Tomer Burg calculate that 14 of 83 U.S. balloon sites, or 17 percent, are doing partial or no launches. That includes two stations that aren’t launching because of a helium shortage and a third that is hindered because of coastal erosion.

University at Albany meteorology professor Kristen Corbosiero looked at the map of launches Friday and said “wow, that is an empty area. … That’s not great.”

Corbosiero works in the building where the Albany weather service used to go to the roof to launch twice-daily weather balloons. It’s now down to one at night, which she said it is worrisome heading into severe weather season.

“For those of us east of the Rocky Mountains, this is probably the worst time of year,” Oklahoma’s McPherson said. “It’s the time of year that we have some of our largest tornado outbreaks.”