'Uncharted waters': Trump budget cuts push National Weather Service 'to its limits'

The Trump administration’s significant budget cuts to the National Weather Service have pushed the agency “to its limits,” according to a new report from the Washington Post, leaving many experts to fear that the agency may very well be unable to perform its most basic functions.

“They’re going to run out of gas,” said John Sokich, who worked for the NWS for close to five decades before retiring this year, speaking with the Washington Post in its report published Saturday. “They’re going to start missing things. They can’t sustain that level of effort for much longer. You just can’t sprint a mile.”

The Trump administration has already terminated hundreds of employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which the NWS is a part of, including many NWS employees themselves. Furthermore, Trump is proposing to slash NOAA’s funding by around $1.7 billion for fiscal year 2026.

The results have already been hard felt at the agency, with many staff “working double shifts” in order to keep forecasting offices operational, and terminating services deemed vital such as educational outreach programs.

It’s the potential to miss something vital, however, that has most NWS employees concerned over its increasingly thinning ranks.

“We have a strained and severely stretched situation,” said Tom Fahy, a leader of the union that represents NWS staff, speaking with the Washington Post. “There’s a breaking point.”

The NWS service employed around 4,300 people last year, a figure that experts said was likely around 200 employees short of ideal. Since Trump took office, however, around 600 workers left the NWS – either through retirement, reassignment or firing – a figure that has alarmed agency veterans.

“In my time here, the agency has never, ever been below 4,000,” said Brian LaMarre, a NWS veteran who’s worked at the agency for more than 30 years. “This is uncharted waters.”