Former NWS directors warn staff cuts could lead to unnecessary deaths during severe weather
'Our worst nightmare is that weather forecast offices will be so understaffed that there will be needless loss of life. We know that's a nightmare shared by those on the forecasting front lines—and by the people who depend on their efforts,' they wrote in an open letter published Friday.
The former directors — who served between 1988 and 2022 — said that between the Trump administration's cuts to probationary workers and personnel reductions through buyouts, the weather service's staffing has been reduced by more than 10% during the busiest time for severe storm predictions.
They said they're also concerned about the Trump administration's budget request for the next fiscal year, after the administration outlined in a letter to Congress a $1.52 billion proposed cut for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the weather service's parent agency.
'NWS staff will have an impossible task to continue its current level of services,' they wrote, if further cuts are implemented. 'Some forecast offices will be so short-staffed that they may be forced to go to part time services."
Want to know more about how NWS cuts could cause meteorologists to miss detecting a tornado? Watch Hallie Jackson Now on NBC News Now, today at 5PM EST.
Their outcry against cuts at the weather service, and the NOAA more broadly, shows that the agencies are a political pressure point as the Trump administration seeks to slash the size of government. Meteorologists said cuts to weather service staffing have led to less effective forecasts, which has spurred some bipartisan backlash in Plains states where severe weather claims many lives.
The letter, which was sent to journalists by a publicist and also circulated on social media, was signed by the former weather service directors: Louis Uccellini, Jack Hayes, U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. D.L. Johnson, U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. John J. Kelly Jr. and U.S. Air Force Col. E.W. (Joe) Friday.
Louis Uccellini during a news conference in Maryland in 2016.
They added: 'As former directors of the National Weather Service, we know firsthand what it takes to make accurate forecasts happen and we stand united against the loss of staff and resources at NWS and are deeply concerned about NOAA as a whole.'
In a statement, the weather service said it wouldn't discuss internal personnel and management matters. It acknowledged that it was juggling staffing concerns.
'We continue to provide weather information, forecasts and warnings pursuant to our public safety mission,' the statement said. 'The National Weather Service is adjusting some services due to temporary staffing changes at our local forecast offices throughout the country in order to best meet the needs of the public, our partners and stakeholders in each office's local area. Work is underway to restore services at local forecast offices around the country.'
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Forecasts during severe weather last month in Nebraska helped to clarify concerns about the cuts and prompted one congressional Republican to speak out.
On April 17, as thunderstorms threatened Iowa and Nebraska, the weather service forecasting office in Valley, Nebraska, near Omaha, launched a special weather balloon at 3 p.m. to assess the risk from the storms, but it did not launch a regularly scheduled 7 p.m. balloon because of staff cuts.
The Valley office was one of more than 10 sites where the weather service announced it would cancel balloon launches because of staffing shortages.
Independent meteorologists said the 7 p.m. balloon launch near Omaha could have helped forecasters identify the risk of tornadoes sooner. Storms that appeared to be mostly a hail threat in data from the 3 p.m. weather balloon ended up producing six tornadoes that tracked across eastern Nebraska.
After the storm, Rep. Mike Flood, R-Neb., said he took steps to intervene. In an April 25 news conference recorded by NBC-affiliate WOWT in Omaha, he said he learned the Valley office's staffing had fallen from 13 forecasters to eight, leaving it little choice but to halt weather balloon operations.
After raising the issue, he told reporters he had received a call from the White House agreeing that changes were needed. Soon after, the weather service sent two forecasters to fulfill a temporary assignment at the Valley office.
'We've changed the policy across the country, and these temporary duty assignments are available for forecasters to go to all the other understaffed weather stations,' Flood said, adding that temporary assignments could become permanent and that weather forecasting offices would be allowed to do some new hiring.
He said he planned to introduce legislation to classify forecasters as public safety workers, a measure that would likely exempt them from federal buyouts and other staff-cutting policies.
'They are clearly public safety. And that's something that we need to do in Congress,' Flood said.
Rick Spinrad, former NOAA administrator under then-President Joe Biden, said the weather service was not a bloated target for budgetary cuts.
'The weather service is costing every American 1 cent per day,' Spinrad said.
The staffing cuts have affected more than just weather balloon launches. Last month, the weather service office in Sacramento, California, sent a memo to local media partners saying that it would reduce overnight staffing and stop answering public phones, among other changes.
Friday, one of the former directors, said he was particularly concerned that additional cuts could further stress overnight staffing.
'The worst case scenario we could have if this situation continues would be the development of a severe storm that would start after midnight,' he said, adding that overnight decisions by the weather service and local emergency planners could be the difference between sirens waking people up to a danger, such as a tornado. 'We have holes throughout the weather service now that are not well thought out.'
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

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USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
Trump's golf trip to Scotland reopens old wounds for some of his neighbors
BALMEDIE, Scotland − Long before talk of hush-money payments, election subversion or mishandling classified documents, before his executive orders were the subject of U.S. Supreme Court challenges, before he was the 45th and then the 47th president: on a wild and windswept stretch of beach in northeast Scotland, Donald Trump the businessman was accused of being a bad neighbor. "This place will never, ever belong to Trump," Michael Forbes, 73, a retired quarry worker and salmon fisherman, said this week as he took a break from fixing a roof on his farm near Aberdeen. The land he owns is surrounded, though disguised in places by trees and hedges, by a golf resort owned by Trump's family business in Scotland, Trump International Scotland. For nearly 20 years, Forbes and several other families who live in Balmedie have resisted what they describe as bullying efforts by Trump to buy their land. (He has denied the allegations.) They and others also say he's failed to deliver on his promises to bring thousands of jobs to the area. Those old wounds are being reopened as Trump returns to Scotland for a four-day visit beginning July 25. It's the country where his mother was born. He appears to have great affection for it. Trump is visiting his golf resorts at Turnberry, on the west coast about 50 miles from Glasgow, and at Balmedie, where Forbes' 23 acres of jumbled, tractor-strewn land, which he shares with roaming chickens and three Highland cows, abut Trump's glossy and manicured golf resort. On July 28, Trump will briefly meet in Balmedie with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to "refine" a recent U.S.-U.K. trade deal, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said. Golf, a little diplomacy: Trump heads to Scotland In Scotland, where estimates from the National Library of Scotland suggest that as many as 34 out of the 45 American presidents have Scottish ancestry, opinions hew toward the he's-ill-suited-for-the-job, according to surveys. "Trump? He just doesn't know how to treat people," said Forbes, who refuses to sell. What Trump's teed up in Scotland Part of the Balmedie community's grievances relate to Trump's failure to deliver on his promises. According to planning documents, public accounts and his own statements, Trump promised, beginning in 2006, to inject $1.5 billion into his golf project six miles north of Aberdeen. He has spent about $120 million. Approval for the development, he vowed, came with more than 1,000 permanent jobs and 5,000 construction gigs attached. Instead, there were 84, meaning fewer than the 100 jobs that already existed when the land he bought was a shooting range. Instead of a 450-room luxury hotel and hundreds of homes that Trump pledged to build for the broader community, there is a 19-room boutique hotel and a small clubhouse with a restaurant and shop that sells Trump-branded whisky, leather hip flasks and golf paraphernalia. Financial filings show that his course on the Menie Estate in Balmedie lost $1.9 million in 2023 − its 11th consecutive financial loss since he acquired the 1,400-acre grounds in 2006. Residents who live and work near the course say that most days, even in the height of summer, the fairway appears to be less than half full. Representatives for Trump International say the plan all along has been to gradually phase in the development at Balmedie and that it is not realistic or fair to expect everything to be built overnight. There's also support for Trump from some residents who live nearby, and in the wider Aberdeen business community. One Balmedie resident who lives in the shadow of Trump's course said that before Trump the area was nothing but featureless sand dunes and that his development, carved between those dunes, made the entire landscape look more attractive. Fergus Mutch, a policy advisor for the Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce, said Trump's golf resort has become a "key bit of the tourism offer" that attracts "significant spenders" to a region gripped by economic turmoil, steep job cuts and a prolonged downturn in its North Sea oil and gas industry. Trump in Scotland: Liked or loathed? Still, recent surveys show that 70% of Scots hold an unfavorable opinion of Trump. Despite his familial ties and deepening investments in Scotland, Trump is more unpopular among Scots than with the British public overall, according to an Ipsos survey from March. It shows 57% of people in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland don't view Trump positively. King Charles invites Trump: American president snags another UK state visit While in Balmedie this time, Trump will open a new 18-hole golf course on his property dedicated to his mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, who was a native of Lewis, in Scotland's Western Isles. He is likely to be met with a wave of protests around the resort, as well as the one in Turnberry. The Stop Trump Coalition, a group of campaigners who oppose most of Trump's domestic and foreign policies and the way he conducts his private and business affairs, is organizing a protest in Aberdeen and outside the U.S. consulate in Edinburgh. During Trump's initial visit to Scotland as president, in his first term, thousands of protesters sought to disrupt his visit, lining key routes and booing him. One protester even flew a powered paraglider into the restricted airspace over his Turnberry resort that bore a banner that read, "Trump: well below par #resist." 'Terrific guy': The Trump-Epstein party boy friendship lasted a decade, ended badly Trump's course in Turnberry has triggered less uproar than his Balmedie one because locals say that he's invested millions of dollars to restore the glamour of its 101-year-old hotel and three golf courses after he bought the site in 2014. Trump versus the families Three families still live directly on or adjacent to Trump's Balmedie golf resort. They say that long before the world had any clue about what type of president a billionaire New York real estate mogul and reality-TV star would become, they had a pretty good idea. Forbes is one of them. He said that shortly after Trump first tried to persuade him and his late wife to sell him their farm, workers he hired deliberately sabotaged an underground water pipe that left the Forbes – and his mother, then in her 90s, lived in her own nearby house – without clean drinking water for five years. Trump International declined to provide a fresh comment on those allegations, but a spokesperson previously told USA TODAY it "vigorously refutes" them. It said that when workers unintentionally disrupted a pipe that ran into an "antiquated" makeshift "well" jointly owned by the Forbeses on Trump's land, it was repaired immediately. Trump has previously called Forbes a "disgrace" who "lives like a pig." 'I don't have a big enough flagpole' David Milne, 61, another of Trump's seething Balmedie neighbors, lives in a converted coast guard station with views overlooking Trump's course and of the dunes and the North Sea beyond. In 2009, Trump offered him and his wife about $260,000 for his house and its one-fifth acre of land, Milne said. Trump was caught on camera saying he wanted to remove it because it was "ugly." Trump, he said, "threw in some jewelry," a golf club membership (Milne doesn't play), use of a spa (not yet built) and the right to buy, at cost, a house in a related development (not yet constructed). Milne valued the offer at about half the market rate. When Milne refused that offer, he said that landscapers working for Trump partially blocked the views from his house by planting a row of trees and sent Milne a $3,500 bill for a fence they'd built around his garden. Milne refused to pay. Over the years, Milne has pushed back. He flew a Mexican flag at his house for most of 2016, after Trump vowed to build a wall on the southern American border and make Mexico pay for it. Milne, a health and safety consultant in the energy industry, has hosted scores of journalists and TV crews at his home, where he has patiently explained the pros and cons − mostly cons, in his view, notwithstanding his own personal stake in the matter − of Trump's development for the local area. Milne said that because of his public feud with Trump, he's a little worried a freelance MAGA supporter could target him or his home. He has asked police to provide protection for him and his wife at his home while Trump is in the area. He also said he won't be flying any flags this time, apart from the Saltire, Scotland's national flag. "I don't have a big enough flagpole. I would need one from Mexico, Canada, Palestine. I would need Greenland, Denmark − you name it," he said, running through some of the places toward which Trump has adopted what critics view as aggressive and adversarial policies. Dunes of great natural importance Martin Ford was the local Aberdeen government official who originally oversaw Trump's planning application to build the Balmedie resort in 2006. He was part of a planning committee that rejected it over environmental concerns because the course would be built between sand dunes that were designated what the UK calls a Site of Special Scientific Interest due to the way they shift over time. The Scottish government swiftly overturned that ruling on the grounds that Trump's investment in the area would bring a much-needed economic boost. Neil Hobday, who was the project director for Trump's course in Balmedie, last year told the BBC he was "hoodwinked" by Trump over his claim that he would spend more than a billion dollars on it. Hobday said he felt "ashamed that I fell for it and Scotland fell for it. We all fell for it." The dunes lost their special status in 2020, according to Nature Scot, the agency that oversees such designations. It concluded that their special features had been "partially destroyed" by Trump's resort. Trump International disputes that finding, saying the issue became "highly politicized." For years, Trump also fought to block the installation of a wind farm off his resort's coast. He lost that fight. The first one was built in 2018. There are now 11 turbines. Ford has since retired but stands by his belief that allowing approval for the Trump resort was a mistake. "I feel cheated out of a very important natural habitat, which we said we would protect and we haven't," he said. "Trump came here and made a lot of promises that haven't materialized. In return, he was allowed to effectively destroy a nature site of great conservation value. It's not the proper behavior of a decent person." Forbes, the former quarry worker and fisherman, said he viewed Trump in similar terms. He said that Trump "will never ever get his hands on his farm." He said that wasn't just idle talk. He said he's put his land in a trust that specified that when he dies, it can't be sold for at least 125 years.


San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Official fired during Trump's first term appointed president of embattled US Institute of Peace
A senior State Department official who was fired as a speechwriter during President Donald Trump 's first term and has a history of incendiary statements has been appointed to lead the embattled U.S. Institute of Peace. The move to install Darren Beattie as the institute's new acting president is seen as the latest step in the administration's efforts to dismantle the embattled organization, which was founded as an independent, non-profit think tank. It is funded by Congress to promote peace and prevent and end conflicts across the globe. The battle is currently being played out in court. Beattie, who currently serves as the under secretary for public diplomacy at the State Department and will continue on in that role, was fired during Trump's first term after CNN reported that he had spoken at a 2016 conference attended by white nationalists. He defended the speech he delivered as containing nothing objectionable. A former academic who taught at Duke University, Beattie also founded a right-wing website that shared conspiracies about the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and has a long history of posting inflammatory statements on social media. 'Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work,' he wrote on October 2024. 'Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men.' A State Department official confirmed Beattie's appointment by the USIP board of directors, which currently includes Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. '(W)e look forward to seeing him advance President Trump's America First agenda in this new role,' they said. The USPI has been embroiled in turmoil since Trump moved to dismantle it shortly after taking office as part of his broader effort to shrink the size of the federal government and eliminate independent agencies. Trump issued an executive order in February that targeted the organization and three other agencies for closure. The first attempt by the Department of Government Efficiency, formerly under the command of tech billionaire Elon Musk, to take over its headquarters led to a dramatic standoff. Members of Musk's group returned days later with the FBI and Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police to help them gain entry. The administration fired most of the institute's board, followed by the mass firing of nearly all of its 300 employees in what they called 'the Friday night massacre.' The institute and many of its board members sued the Trump administration in March, seeking to prevent their removal and to prevent DOGE from taking over the institute's operations. DOGE transferred administrative oversight of the organization's headquarters and assets to the General Services Administration that weekend. District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell overturned those actions in May, concluding that Trump was outside his authority in firing the board and its acting president and that, therefore, all subsequent actions were also moot. Her ruling allowed the institute to regain control of its headquarters in a rare victory for the agencies and organizations that have been caught up in the Trump administration's downsizing. The employees were rehired, although many did not return to work because of the complexity of restarting operations. They received termination orders — for the second time, however, — after an appeals court stayed Howell's order. Most recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied the U.S. Institute of Peace's request for a hearing of the full court to lift the stay of a three-judge panel in June. That stay led to the organization turning its headquarters back over to the Trump Administration. In a statement, George Foote, former counsel for the institute, said Beattie's appointment 'flies in the face of the values at the core of USIP's work and America's commitment to working respectfully with international partners' and also called it 'illegal under Judge Howell's May 19 decision.' 'We are committed to defending that decision against the government's appeal. We are confident that we will succeed on the merits of our case, and we look forward to USIP resuming its essential work in Washington, D.C. and in conflict zones around the world,' he said.


Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
Trump plays golf in Scotland while protesters take to the streets and decry his visit
Advertisement Hundreds of demonstrators gathered on the cobblestone and tree-lined street in front of the U.S. Consulate about 100 miles (160 kilometers) away in Edinburgh, Scotland's capital. Speakers told the crowd that Trump was not welcome and criticized British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for striking a recent trade deal to avoid stiff U.S. tariffs on goods imported from the U.K. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Anti-Trump Protestors gather outside the US Consulate in Edinburgh, Scotland, July 26, 2025. ROBERT ORMEROD/NYT Protests were planned in other cities as environmental activists, opponents of Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza and pro-Ukraine groups loosely formed a 'Stop Trump Coalition.' Anita Bhadani, an organizer, said the protests were 'kind of like a carnival of resistance.' Trump's late mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, was born on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland and the president has suggested he feels at home in the country. But the protesters did their best to change that. Advertisement 'I don't think I could just stand by and not do anything,' said Amy White, 15, of Edinburgh, who attended with her parents. She held a cardboard sign that said 'We don't negotiate with fascists.' She said 'so many people here loathe him. We're not divided. We're not divided by religion, or race or political allegiance, we're just here together because we hate him.' Other demonstrators held signs of pictures with Trump and Jeffrey Epstein as the fervor over files in the case has increasingly frustrated the president. In the view of Mark Gorman, 63, of Edinburgh, 'the vast majority of Scots have this sort of feeling about Trump that, even though he has Scottish roots, he's a disgrace.' Gorman, who works in advertising, said he came out 'because I have deep disdain for Donald Trump and everything that he stands for.' Saturday's protests were not nearly as large as the throngs that demonstrated across Scotland when Trump played at Turnberry during his first term in 2018. But, as bagpipes played, people chanted 'Trump Out!' and raised dozens of homemade signs that said things like 'No red carpet for dictators,' 'We don't want you here' and 'Stop Trump. Migrants welcome.' People take part in a Stop Trump Scotland protest outside the US Consulate in Edinburgh, as US President Donald Trump begins his five-day private trip to the country at his Turnberry golf course in South Ayrshire on Saturday July 26, 2025. Jane Barlow/Associated Press One dog had a sign that said 'No treats for tyrants.' Some on the far right took to social media to call for gatherings supporting Trump in places such as Glasgow. Trump also plans to talk trade with Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president. But golf is a major focus. The family will also visit another Trump course near Aberdeen in northeastern Scotland, before returning to Washington on Tuesday. The Trumps will cut the ribbon and play a new, second course in that area, which officially opens to the public next month. Advertisement Scottish First Minister John Swinney, who is also set to meet with Trump during the visit, announced that public money will go to staging the 2025 Nexo Championship, previously known previously as the Scottish Championship, at Trump's first course near Aberdeen next month. 'The Scottish Government recognizes the importance and benefits of golf and golf events, including boosting tourism and our economy,' Swinney said. At a protest Saturday in Aberdeen, Scottish Parliament member Maggie Chapman told the crowd of hundreds: 'We stand in solidarity, not only against Trump but against everything he and his politics stand for.' The president has long lobbied for Turnberry to host the British Open, which it has not done since he took over ownership. In a social media post Saturday, Trump quoted the retired golfer Gary Player as saying Turnberry was among the 'Top Five Greatest Golf Courses' he had played in as a professional. The president, in the post, misspelled the city where his golf course is located. This story has been corrected to reflect that the Trump family's company took over Turnberry in 2014, not 2008.