As some forecast offices reduce overnight staffing, the National Weather Service is working quickly to reallocate staff internally and fill over 150 vacancies essential for operations.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration began a “period of reassignment” on Tuesday, seeking 76 meteorologists and a total of 155 employees to consider relocating to essential positions left vacant following the previous administration’s actions, which included dismissing probationary employees and promoting early retirements among experienced federal employees at the National Weather Service (NWS).

The service was looking to fill five top-tier positions for meteorologists in charge at various field offices, specifically those in Lake Charles, Louisiana; Houston; and Wilmington, Ohio.

Meanwhile, at least eight of the nation’s 122 weather forecasting offices — including Sacramento, California; Goodland, Kansas; and Jackson, Kentucky — are no longer able to operate overnight or plan to cut overnight operations within the next month and a half, according to Tom Fahy, legislative director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization, which is tracking the service’s staffing numbers.

Critics of the cuts say the push to reassign meteorologists and other staffers shows that the service has been cut too deep and that key public safety services are being harmed.

“This has never happened before. We’ve always been an agency that has provided 24/7 service to the American public,” Fahy said. “The risk is extremely high — if cuts like this continue to the National Weather Service, people will die.” 

The National Weather Service acknowledged that it was making changes, temporarily, to the level of service it was providing and to staffing, but said it was continuing to meet its mission and that NWS forecasts continued to be accurate. 

“NOAA and the NWS are committed to mitigating impacts from recent staffing changes to ensure core mission functions continue,” the service said in a statement. “These efforts include temporary adjustments to service levels and, for offices with the greatest need, the temporary assignment of meteorologists and advertising permanent internal reassignments.”

Fahy said the 52 out of the nation’s 122 weather forecast offices have staffing vacancy rates above 20%.

A list of the service’s field office leadership, which was last updated on Wednesday, showed that the agency is riddled with vacancies and that 35 meteorologist-in-charge roles at forecast offices remained vacant. 

Since the new administration took charge, the National Weather Service has cut more than 500 employees by offering early retirement programs to senior staffers and by firing probationary employees, according to a letter from the former directors, who warned that the cuts could lead to unnecessary deaths during severe weather such as tornadoes, wildfires and hurricanes. 

“Our worst nightmare is that weather forecast offices will be so understaffed that there will be needless loss of life,” the directors wrote earlier this month. 

Recently retired NWS employees said they were concerned that staffing levels had fallen below critical levels at a time when the service was under a hiring freeze, and when many early career workers in probationary roles had been dismissed. 

Alan Gerard, who accepted an early retirement in March as the director of the analysis and understanding branch at NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory, likened the NWS reassignment notice to “rearranging deck chairs,” noting that it did not address core concerns.

“They’re really just moving people from one office to another office, and while it will help potentially some of the really short-term crisis situations they have, it’s not any kind of long-term solution,” Gerard said. “It’s not an influx of people.”

Brian LaMarre, who recently served as the meteorologist-in-charge of the Tampa Bay Area weather forecast office in Florida and accepted an early retirement from NWS on April 30, said he understood the impulse to modernize and streamline the service. 

In fact, LaMarre had participated in an effort predating the Trump administration to reorganize parts of the service.

The service planned to modernize parts of its staffing structure by implementing a “mutual aid” system, in which local forecast offices could request and receive assistance with daily tasks during severe weather or when understaffed.

“A lot of those plans are being accelerated out of urgency,” LaMarre said, after what he described as “haphazard” cuts. “Whenever you want to rearrange the furniture in the living room, you don’t burn down your house, and that’s what we’re seeing.” 

LaMarre said NWS should resume hiring soon because many forecasters in their 50s and 60s took voluntary buyouts, sapping the service of years of experience. At the same time, the service has cut probationary workers, including many who were in their first or second years of service.

“Cutting off the probationary employees really limits the future capacity of the agency,” LaMarre said. “That’s your bright minds, your new innovative minds coming out of universities into new positions. That’s why it’s so very important to open up hiring.”