The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), whose umbrella of offices includes the National Weather Service (NWS), is getting to rehire some staff that they lost due to government cuts.
According to several media reports summed up by Tom Schmidt of Ozarks First, NOAA, like many government agencies, were put under the microscope by the Department of Government Efficiency and subject to positions being eliminated. In the case of NOAA, that meant a 1,000-staff decrease throughout the agency. For the NWS, that meant a 20% vacancy in personnel.
The reduced staff has led several NWS offices to discontinue 24 hour monitoring at several offices across the country, though the offices in Springfield, Little, Rock, or Tulsa were not included.
The Ozarks First Report also states that several offices nationally either reduced or eliminated weather balloon launches that are used to collect data from the atmosphere to predict weather trends.
With a busy spring weather season across the county plus with hurricane season getting underway, the government is allowing NOAA to rehire over 100 positions determined to be critical to the daily operations of NOAA and all of its agencies.
The complete story from Ozarks First Meteorologist Tom Schmidt can be found on the Ozarks First Website.
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