As hurricane and tornado seasons fast approach, funding for the National Weather Service is on the chopping block.  If the Continuing Resolution proposed by the House majority is enacted roughly 30% of the NWS budget will be slashed.

The National Hurricane Center, the Storm Prediction Center, the Aviation Weather Center, the Tsunami Warning Centers, River Forecast Centers and local Weather Forecast Offices located in Kansas City, Springfield, St. Louis and other communities across the nation are all victims of Congress's budget cut.  These cuts could also force local offices to close down for 30 days at a time or force employees to take extended furloughs.

The effects will reach every aspect of daily life, including emergency management, television weather, and information used for transportation, commerce and agriculture.    

The cuts could change how meteorologists make forecasts and get information during severe weather. For example, the NWS launches weather balloons twice a day to measure pressure, temperature and winds.  Reduced funding will mean upper air observations currently made twice a day might be reduced to every two days.  This means that the data used to make a forecast could be 36 hours old.  Buoy and surface weather observations may be temporarily or permanently discontinued. These observations serve as a primary factor for most of the weather and warning systems.  

Recent advances in aviation weather forecasting have resulted in as much as a 50 percent reduction in weather related flight delays.  Unfortunately, these improvements are also on the chopping block as the money to fund the programs will be discontinued.

We have already seen what an inadequate web system can do during a major storm across the U.S.. During the February blizzard the NWS saw nearly 15-20 million hits per hour on web servers, slowing the web pages to a halt.  Public safety becomes affected since a less accurate forecast and less timely updates during severe weather potentially leave thousands without knowing. 

What’s your take?  Do you think this will present problems relaying information to the public in times of severe weather?