JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – At a time when hurricanes are growing stronger, the National Hurricane Center 2024 forecasts have never been more accurate and help save lives and reduce economic losses. Yet, despite these advancements, budget cuts at NOAA now threaten the very programs responsible for these critical gains.
On Feb. 28, NOAA terminated two flight directors and one electronics engineer, a move that could significantly impact hurricane forecasting for the upcoming season.
The cuts are a part of the efforts behind Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE, to eliminate “unnecessary” spending to ensure government efficiency.
Hurricane Hunter aircraft provide real-time storm data essential for accurate predictions, and every NOAA mission requires a flight director — a meteorologist responsible for the mission’s safety from a meteorological perspective. With these layoffs, NOAA’s flight director count has dropped from eight to six, barely enough to sustain the twice-daily missions needed during major hurricanes.
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While the U.S. Air Force will continue flying C-130s into the cores of hurricanes from Keesler Air Force Base, NOAA’s Orion P-3 aircraft offer a unique capability: their onboard Doppler radar measures wind and rainfall within the storm, providing vital three-dimensional data.
Additionally, NOAA’s Gulfstream IV jets collect upper-atmosphere data crucial for predicting a storm’s track and intensity. These jets, along with the P-3s, are based at NOAA’s Office of Aircraft Operations in Lakeland, Florida, where the cutbacks have occurred.
Meteorologist and Hurricane Hunter Kerri Englert flew directly into Hurricanes Beryl, Milton and Helene last year alongside a team of highly trained experts to collect data about rapidly intensifying storms.
Englert is a former Navy Reserve lieutenant, who at one time was based out of Jacksonville before getting her degree in Meteorology. She said she was notified in a short email last week, that she had been fired.
“Cuts to NOAA really impact the public. That’s not something as simple as a few people who lost their jobs. It’s a matter of data collection and data management, as well as data dissemination,” Englert said.
The Cost of Cutting Research
The value of this research is undeniable.
Englert said her termination and the firing of many others at NOAA could directly impact Hurricane Hunters’ missions and day-to-day forecasting of severe weather. She said it’s possible NOAA could be shrunk down to critical staffing levels which in turn could have an impact on valuable storm data.
“Without that updated data, then that uncertainty grows wider, which means you have a broader area of evacuation zones, a broader area of emergency response planning or emergency response actions that need to happen, and you have potential for, costly as far as lifesaving, as well as monetary,” Englert said.
Advances in hurricane forecasting have been credited with reducing storm-related costs by billions of dollars. A 2024 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, “The Social Value of Hurricane Forecasts,” analyzed 18 landfalling hurricanes in the U.S. from 2005 to 2020. The findings showed that improved forecasts reduced total hurricane-related costs by 19%, averaging $5 billion in savings per storm. These benefits stemmed from both reduced damages and more efficient emergency preparedness — preventing unnecessary evacuations while ensuring at-risk areas had adequate warnings.
Englert said she hopes the message that resonates is that data collection is not a partisan issue.
NOAA’s Role Beyond Operational Forecasting
Unlike the Air Force, which primarily gathers data for immediate operational forecasts, NOAA’s missions serve a dual purpose. In addition to supporting real-time forecasts, NOAA conducts extensive research aimed at improving long-term hurricane prediction models. By refining how storms are tracked, measured, and understood, NOAA’s work enhances the accuracy of every future forecast, making each hurricane season safer and more predictable.
Cutting funding for these programs now jeopardizes decades of progress.
News4JAX also spoke with Andy Hazelton, a former physical scientist at NOAA’s environmental modeling center. He too was fired unexpectedly last week.
“Our mission is to protect lives and property, and that’s what we do. And we with this sort of just haphazard approach, I think it’s going to degrade our forecast, which we don’t want to see, and we would reverse a lot of the progress we’ve made in that and ultimately make people less safe when storms threaten,” Hazelton said.
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Hazelton worked on hurricane analysis and forecast systems. He said the cuts to NOAA threaten years of progress in hurricane forecasting.
“The modeling that goes into the forecast is going to be impacted. I think there’s a real risk we could have hurricane flights that are not able to go or less reliable because of that. And that’s certainly, you know, a big chunk of data to be missing,” Hazelton said.
The loss of flight directors and reductions in research flights will diminish the quality of data available to forecast models, ultimately leading to less precise storm predictions. At a time when climate change is fueling stronger hurricanes, investing in hurricane research is more critical than ever.
Hazelton was a probationary employee of NOAA but points out it wasn’t a merit-based probation, he’d been working with NOAA for the past eight years through Princeton University and the University of Miami, and only recently became a full-time federal employee.
With the 2025 hurricane season approaching, these funding cuts raise serious concerns. Without proper investment, the progress made in forecasting — and the lives and economic losses saved — could be at risk.
News4JAX reached out to NOAA to find out if the public should be concerned about the recent firings and how they affect severe weather forecasts. We have not yet heard back.