WASHINGTON, D.C. – Hundreds of weather forecasters and other federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employees on probationary status were fired Thursday, lawmakers and weather experts said, as billionaire Elon Musk aims to shrink a federal workforce that President Donald Trump has called bloated and sloppy.
Federal workers who were not let go said the afternoon layoffs included meteorologists who do crucial local forecasts in National Weather Service offices across the country.
Cuts at NOAA appeared to be happening in two rounds, one of 500 and one of 800, said Craig McLean, a former NOAA chief scientist who said he got the information from someone with first-hand knowledge. That’s about 10% of NOAA’s workforce.
The first round of cuts was probationary employees, McLean said. There are about 375 probationary employees in the National Weather Service — where day-to-day forecasting and hazard warning is done.
Thousands of probationary employees across the government have already been fired.
Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., released a statement saying: “Today, hundreds of employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), including weather forecasters at the National Weather Service (NWS), were given termination notices for no good reason. This is unconscionable.”
Meng added: “These are dedicated, hardworking Americans whose efforts help save lives and property from the devastating impacts of natural disasters across the country. This action will only endanger American lives going forward.”
Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat who is the ranking minority member in the House Natural Resources Committee, also said “hundreds of scientists and experts at NOAA” were let go.
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said on social media that the job cuts “are spectacularly short-sighted, and ultimately will deal a major self-inflicted wound to the public safety of Americans and the resiliency of the American economy to weather and climate-related disasters.”
On his YouTube channel, Swain said that these people are the ones “responsible for creating your day-to-day weather forecast. This is very clearly not what you want to do – kneecap a well-functioning agency.”
