Forecast: Trouble ahead over cuts to National Weather Service, FEMA

Forecast: Trouble ahead over cuts to National Weather Service, FEMA / May 27, 2025 / NJ Spotlight

By Brenda Flanagan

Forecasts of an above-average hurricane season this year are ringing alarm bells after the Trump administration’s recent staffing and budget cutback at both the National Weather Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, agencies that predict and respond to major storms.

The weather service forecast six to 10 named hurricanes this season, with three to five of them major. NWS Director Ken Graham warned that the worst of them now take less than three days to rapidly intensify before they strike land.

“The big ones that hit this country are fast,” he said during a briefing last week. “That’s why the preparedness we’re talking about today, you have got to have the plan early, because the big ones are really quick.”

But how quick a response is now a question mark with the Trump administration’s cuts.

Most of New Jersey depends on forecasts from the National Weather Service office in Mount Holly, one of 122 nationwide. Following cuts, at least eight offices can no longer staff around the clock. The Mount Holly office so far has escaped those cuts, but it’s reportedly been operating with four unfilled vacancies out of 600 openings nationwide.

But Graham assured the public. “The Hurricane Center’s fully staffed. I’m gonna make sure our offices, when there’s a hurricane threat, will have the resources to make sure every warning goes out.”

The NWS in a statement added that it has “updated the service level standards for its weather forecast offices to manage impacts due to shifting personnel resources … NWS continues to ensure a continuity of service for mission-critical functions.”

Not everyone is so sure.

“I was with NOAA for 35 years, and we never really faced a situation like this,” said Alan Gerard, former director of the National Severe Storms Lab. “So it’s, it’s hard to know exactly if and where there’s a breaking point.”

Gerard, who took early retirement from the National Weather Service in March, said budget and staff cuts mean less weather data, degraded forecasts and higher stress.

“They’ve offered reassignments to basically try to move people from some of the offices that are more heavily staffed to some of the offices that are in more dire need,” he said. “As the resources continue to shrink, there’s only so much you can do.”

State climatologist Dave Robinson said he fears new cutbacks — like launching fewer weather balloons to collect daily data — will damage short and long term analyses.

“If the radar isn’t working, and if the observation networks aren’t reporting, we’re kind of flying blind,” he said. “And along the way can result in weakening of forecasts, be it a hurricane, a tornado. A change in climate system, a drought, which New Jersey has just been through. We need a wealth of data.”

And it impacts everybody’s forecast — from one’s phone app, to national networks, to local meteorologists sizing up weekends down the Jersey Shore.

“Yeah, I’m doing my own forecasting, but I’m getting that data from the National Weather Service and NOAA, right?” said Cup A Joe meteorologist Joe Martucci.

And so the battle over scarce resources begins, in the aftermath of tragedies like the tornadoes that have brought death and destruction to the Midwest this spring — with political storms to match. It’s a familiar fight. After Sandy, the Obama administration fielded FEMA in New Jersey, but Republican Gov. Chris Christie battled political headwinds to get a $60 billion aid package from a Congress controlled by his own party.

“I just think it’s easier to be a congressman when you don’t have to look the pain and loss in the eye, like a governor does,” Christie said of the political tug-of-war the time. “You want to make sure you can get the most you can.”

President Trump has alarmed people on both sides of the aisle by suggesting FEMA could just “go away,” leaving states in charge of disaster response. Trump established a review council to consider options. Advocates like the New Jersey Organizing Project urged the panel to boost resources, noting that FEMA is projected to run out of cash by mid-summer.

“Will they be able to roll that out? Are there enough staff to actually make that happen?” asked Ida survivor Leanna Jones, who’s also with the New Jersey Organizing Project. “I don’t know, and that’s scary — very scary.”

She said only the federal government can marshal the required resources and must step in after such a catastrophe.

Joe Mangino lost his home and his business to Superstorm Sandy, and said the next big storm will be an important test for the state.

“Time is of the essence when you’re preparing for a storm,” he said. “That first storm that strikes is going to be a test on how well we as local communities, local grassroots organizations and state agencies respond to what we’re up against.”