Standing Up for the Hurricane Hunters
If you query “National Weather Service” online, you’ll see articles such as this one from early last week:
“Severe weather and critical fire risk, ranked ‘multi-hazard,’ expected nationwide.”
Under that ominous headline was a map of North America with the caption, “This graphic by the National Weather Service shows forecasted weather conditions across the US for Tuesday, March 4, 2025.” The whole middle of the continent was an explosion of colors. Associated text described the probability of thunderstorms merging into a dangerous squall line, tornados, severe gusts, large hail, heavy snow including potentially whiteout conditions, and red flag fire danger.
A small sidebar linked to another story: “National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) firings raise concern over agency’s ability to forecast hurricanes and more.”
Maine’s lobster harvesters have not always been in love with every action taken by NOAA’s Fisheries division, with respect to the troubles of the North Atlantic Right Whale, to be sure. But using all available technologies in the study of, prediction of, and preparedness for weather is absolutely above reproach. An agency staffed with weather experts and supplied with advanced weather technology is an excellent use of taxpayer’s money.
Skeptics of human-caused climate change still benefit from an understanding of how the planet’s complex systems work, and the associated predictive mapping. Meteorology is apolitical, philosophically neutral, and does nobody any harm. There aren’t “two sides.” It isn’t “left” or “right-leaning;” it’s the physics of air and water, heat and electricity. Studying and reporting the weather has no downside. There is nothing to make fun of (well, except maybe the pukey ride in the Hurricane Hunter plane, see below). On the expense side of this country’s ledger, compared with so much else we pay for, it costs a pittance.
A radar map is an amazing thing. Just imagine how our ancestors would have reacted to such a tool.
Washington Senator Maria Cantwell, who chairs the subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard (which oversees NOAA) described to reporters how roughly 10% of NOAA workers were suddenly fired or encouraged to retire recently, including meteorologists, people who repair the radar systems, and staff from the Hurricane Hunters.
I say, hands off the Hurricane Hunters. Those women and men are my superheroes. As a pilot and as a disaster preparedness nerd I stand in awe of those folks. What they have the courage to do is inspiring. They deserve more respect than this.
I have met members of the Hurricane Hunters crew twice. A few years ago, I was chosen to attend training at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. The Hurricane Hunter crewmembers who came to our classroom for a Q&A session joked, “Our motto is, ‘We can make anybody throw up!’”
The second time was last summer, when two Hurricane Hunter aircraft—a US Air Force WC-130J Super Hercules and a NOAA Lockheed WP-3D Orion four-engine turboprop, along with their crews, were at the Portland Jetport, available for public inspection. (***photos)
In his speech on Tuesday night, the president rattled off a long list of supposedly wasteful or fraudulent programs that have been chopped in the interest of financial responsibility. His list of somewhat obscure projects in foreign places was supposed to sound laughable, like “basketweaving in Timbuktu” to the audience (except that Timbuktu may have actually been included, so let’s not diss any real places, or any real arts either). But even if one doesn’t care in the slightest about nominal international outreach for the sake of diplomacy, the National Weather Service is not that. It makes no sense for anybody to write it off as a silly vanity project.
I live in a place that relies on constant maritime and aviation weather information for everything from emergency response and ferry scheduling to choosing when to host a strawberry daiquiri party. My offshore neighbors, and all area transportation workers, check, subscribe to, and perseverate over multiple weather apps, sites, and broadcasts daily. Most of that information originates with the National Weather Service.
Late Tuesday night, after the big speech, I heard Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin suggest that people “Pick just one issue you’re passionate about — and engage.” I’ll pick the National Weather Service. I feel personally aggrieved, and I am deeply angered, seeing this valuable scientific agency whacked at with an administrative two-by-four by people who do not help with emergencies, do not help produce the nation’s food, and if readers can forgive the stereotyping, it is doubtful have ever done a single hour’s outdoor work in their lives. Wipe that smirk off your face, Elon; you have much to be ashamed of.