Hundreds of federal employees working for the National Weather Service and the National Marine and Atmospheric Administration were among the latest employees to be cut by the Trump administration on Thursday.
Employees were showing local meteorologists that they were reporting daily weather to hurricane modeling experts.
It was unclear on Friday whether an employee working in Ruskin’s National Weather Service office was fired. Weather Department spokesman Susan Buchanan declined to comment on the cuts or number of employees affected in the Tampa Bay area.
“NOAA is dedicated to its mission and provides timely information, research and resources that serve the American people and ensure our country’s environmental and economic resilience,” Buchanan said. “We continue to provide weather information, forecasts and warnings in line with our public safety mission.”
The firing has reduced federal workers, what President Donald Trump called bloated and sloppy, amid efforts by billionaire Elon Musk and his government’s efficiency. Thousands of probation employees across the government have already been fired, according to the Associated Press.
The cut comes just after one of the deadliest and drunkest hurricane seasons in Tampa Bay’s recorded weather history.
Daniel Noah, a National Weather Service retirement warning and adjustment meteorologist at Ruskin, said he fears slashing federal meteorologists will affect the hurricane season that will affect Tampa Bay.
“At the National Weather Service, we were always lacking for what we were doing,” Noah said. “And not having more staffing will be a source of strain this hurricane season.”
On Friday, Noah said he had not spoken to weather service staff and was not aware of the cuts to staff. Noah left the company in late 2023 after working in weather services for 35 years.
He said the morale was low when he last visited three weeks ago. He said staff are worried about their work and their future.
The weather service is located in “clear weather” and runs 24/7 on a revolving schedule. Employees are working overtime as hurricanes and harsh weather hit barrels towards Tampa Bay, Noah said.
“Hurricane staffing – some of them were in the office for three days, where we were sleeping there and eating there. Those offices weren’t designed for that,” Noah said.
Noah retired after a recent period in a harsh hurricane season. The long and stressful days go beyond the lead-up to the landing storm. Weather services are working on damage assessments and spending months coordinating with the offseason emergency manager.
“So people who work for weather services, they don’t do it for money, they do it for passion,” Noah said.
![An aerial photograph of Ruskin's National Weather Service Tampa Bay office is shown in this 2018 photo.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 620 348"/%3E "An aerial photograph of Ruskin's National Weather Service Tampa Bay office is shown in this 2018 photo.")
Pasco County Emergency Management Director Andrew Fossa said in a statement by the Tampa Bay Times that he understands people may be worried about weather services layoffs, but it is too early to speculate on the potential impact on operations during hurricane season.
He called the expertise of the Meteorological Bureau “incredibly valuable.”
The massive layoffs from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration include at least 600 well-known meteorologists in Miami, and the person responsible for integrating artificial intelligence into climate and weather forecasts, according to the former director.
“All NOAA offices have been hit with these indiscriminate, misguided, intentional reforms,” said Rick Spinrad, former president of former President Joe Biden, at a press conference Friday.
According to Spinrad, the cuts by researchers, particularly those collecting data fed to the storm model, could erode the quality of hurricane predictions.
“It’s not clear that planes can fly and ships can go to the sea. “The quality of predictions can go down to some extent.”
On Thursday afternoon, some staff members posted on social media that they had received an “email” and lost their jobs.
Among them was Andrew Hazelton, an assistant scientist in the Miami-based Hurricane Research Division.
“I don’t want to comment other than exploring legal options on some roads,” he posted to X.
Another weather researcher, Zach Lane, also posted to X that he lost his job to help perfect the use of AI and machine learning in climate and weather forecasting.
“After nearly two weeks of overwhelming uncertainty, today happened. I was fired from my dream of working for NOAA. Sorry for everyone being affected,” he posted.
Craig McLean, who was one of the 500 rounds and one of the 800s, one of the 800s, one of the 800s and one of the 800s, Craig McLean said he got information from someone with first-hand knowledge, according to a report from the Associated Press.
That’s about 10% of the institution’s workforce. The first round of the cut was a probation employee, McLean said.
The shooting may be subject to legal review. A federal judge on Thursday blocked the mass shootings of several federal agency probation workers, probably because it was illegal.
The Los Angeles Times reported a massive departure that shocked climate-predicting employees, particularly advocates and scientists focusing on climate, the environment and weather.
“NOAA hamstrings important lifesaving programs to predict storms, ensure ocean safety and prevent the extinction of whales and ocean otters,” said Sakashita, director of the Marine Programs at the Center for Biodiversity, which works to protect wildlife.
“Most Americans want to protect these types of vital government services. We will do everything we can to protect them.”
Juan DeCollette Barrett, a senior social scientist for the Coalition of Climate Vulnerability for the Coalition of Concern Scientists, a member-supported group of scientists, has called for a move from the Trump administration, both about community safety and the future of climate science.
“It will exterminate the country’s central scientific enterprises as it will costly, fatal climate change impacts and extreme weather events will worsen and fly in the face of logic, common sense and financial responsibility,” Declet-Barreto said.
A retired Tampa meteorologist, Noah says that Meteorological Services is a life and safety-focused agency.
“My fear is that if we’re too much staffed during the hurricane we’re approaching, something bad can happen,” Noah said.
Information from the Associated Press, the Miami Herald and the Los Angeles Times complement this report.
