Spring 2025: Imagine an overworked, sleepy, bleary-eyed weather forecaster trying to examine radar data at 2 A.M. to determine whether to issue a tornado warning for your area. He strains to see the screen and takes another gulp of coffee despite the time. The screen is blurry because he’s stared at it for too long, and his brain is fogged from too much work and not enough sleep. But he must do it, because there is no one else. This meteorologist is doing triple duty and overtime because the office has many forecaster vacancies.

Now imagine that the office had selected two new meteorologists to hire and started the hiring process, but was prevented from completing it because of the federal hiring freeze.

On January 20, 2025, Donald Trump imposed a federal hiring freeze. The executive order provided for exemptions for national security, immigration law enforcement, and public safety. However, under orders from the Office of Management and Budget, hiring officials froze and rescinded all pending job offers for the National Weather Service and removed all listings from USAjobs.gov. This has left hundreds of meteorologists, hydrologists, and other geoscientists in a state of uncertainty, including those who had received offers to become operational forecasters for the NWS.

This hiring freeze includes all forecasting jobs for Weather Forecast Offices, River Forecast Centers, the National Hurricane Center, the Storm Prediction Center, and others. No one can seriously dispute that these jobs should be exempted from the freeze under public safety, but no such exception has been granted yet.

The National Weather Service is indisputably a public-safety organization. Its WFOs, RFCs, the NHC, the SPC, and other offices employ forecasters who must work through emergency conditions beside police, fire departments, local emergency management, and emergency medical personnel. They must work through government shutdowns. These offices are supposed to be staffed around the clock. This means offices must have sufficient staff for all shifts to be filled by forecasters who are in top form.

The NWS has been chronically understaffed for years. While NWS leadership has made improvements, most offices still are not fully staffed. The federal hiring freeze, from which the NWS has not been exempted despite its public-safety purpose, currently is preventing the NWS from recruiting more forecasters or even completing the hiring process for those who have accepted job offers.

The National Weather Service’s stated mission, found on https://www.weather.gov/about/, is as follows:

Provide weather, water and climate data, forecasts, warnings, and impact-based decision support services for the protection of life and property and enhancement of the national economy.

Forecasting improvements over the past century have brought down the human death toll of weather events and led to vast improvements in building construction. Forecasters can predict the landfall site and intensity of a hurricane with a high degree of accuracy several days in advance, saving countless lives. Storm-tracking at sea has reduced maritime fatalities to almost zero, whereas in the past, ship crews accounted for the lion’s share of hurricane fatalities. Tornado warnings have a record-high amount of lead time, and severe weather outbreaks are predicted well in advance, allowing communities to take necessary precautions. Fire weather prediction is also part of the NWS, and the importance of this is especially salient to California at the present time.

As we continue through winter and prepare for the spring tornado, flood, and severe thunderstorm season, we must not have the NWS understaffed and overworked. As the NWS’s mission states, “the protection of life and property and enhancement of the national economy” depends on it.

We already know that there are consequences to freezes that are, through bureaucracy, applied more broadly than they were originally intended. The previous federal hiring freeze, which occurred in 2017, seriously impacted the National Weather Service’s operations during hurricane season. It would be a disaster if this occurred again, but fortunately, that outcome is avoidable.

This Groundhog Day, we petition for an end to “winter” or “freeze” for the NWS.

We petition Mr. Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Commerce nominee, to quickly lift the hiring freeze on the National Weather Service after his Senate confirmation by obtaining the public-safety exemption from OMB, for which Trump's executive order provides.

We petition Dr. Neil Jacobs, NOAA administrator nominee, to collaborate with Mr. Lutnick in getting the exemptions for NOAA after his Senate confirmation.

We petition Senators Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell, Chair and Ranking Member of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, to keep the precarious situation of the National Weather Service in mind and remind the nominees of their responsibility to the American people.

Do not let the NWS face three more months of freezing!