A staffing shortage has forced the National Weather Service’s Forecast Office in Cheyenne to close its offices overnight, raising questions about the accuracy of future weather forecasts and the timeliness of warnings, according to Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day.
The change is a public safety issue, one Day believes should transcend the politics of the moment.
“I understand trying to trim fat, trying to be more efficient,” he said. “But the thing is, what is the plan? Because there’s going to be weather that happens overnight. The weather never sleeps. It never takes a holiday. It never takes a night off.”
Day said answers to his questions about the overnight closure of the forecast office in Cheyenne have so far been few and far between.
“We haven’t had any communication from them,” he said.
That has left Day and others he works with in both aviation and weather forecasting circles guessing about what’s going to happen, and who is going to do what, when.
“There’s actually five separate Weather Service offices that have Wyoming responsibilities for forecasts and warnings,” he said. “When it comes to severe weather that happens during the night, when (Cheyenne) is closed, we’re assuming that there’s going to be Forecast Offices around that will take up that responsibility.”
Radar Doesn’t See Everything
That sounds good on the surface, Day said. But there’s a big problem with that.
Weather forecasting today still requires a large human element in terms of boots on the ground. That’s because radar can’t actually see everything that’s happening.
“There’s always a blind spot very close to where the radar sits,” Day said. “The beam has to be pointed up so it can go along the horizon.”
Radar beams generally are tilted up a little to avoid interference from buildings and structures on the ground, and to scan the horizon. That means it often can’t see things happening a few miles from the surface of the earth, particularly if an area lacks overlapping radar beams, which is common in some rural areas.
So, part of weather forecasting requires actual human eyes with boots on the ground to help verify the data that weather Doppler radar is spitting, or in some cases not spitting, out. And the farther away from the actual weather on the ground those humans are, the harder it is for them to accurately assess what is really happening.
There’s also an element of experience required. Knowledge of the local land and geological features is another aspect of accurate forecasting.
“So, I’m sitting here in Cheyenne, Wyoming,” he said. “And if someone asked me tomorrow to start forecasting the weather for New Orleans, OK, do I have the resources to do that? Yes, but I don’t have the local knowledge. I don’t have that local expertise. So if you’re going to trim back and close these offices, you’re losing that local knowledge of that local weather and the way local weather patterns work.”
Closing forecast offices overnight could lead to shortened timeframes for warnings, Day said, giving people less lead time to respond. If there’s widespread severe weather happening, it could also lead to a situation where personnel are stretched too thin.
“Weather jobs are already really stressful,” Day said. “I don’t know if people really have an appreciation for that. When they issue a tornado or other type of warning, people’s lives are on the line. So, if you’re making life or death decisions in multiple locations at the same time, that’s taxing for that person.”
Emergency Alert System
The National Weather Service’s 24-hour forecasting plays a huge role in emergency weather alerts that go out any time of day or night, whenever and wherever people and property might be at risk.
The data is used by a wide variety of agencies in decision making, including entities like Wyoming Department of Transportation.
“WYDOT relies on quick, accurate, and localized weather forecasting, and the National Weather Service is one of our partners in providing that information to our employees and the general public,” WYDOT spokesman Doug McGee told Cowboy State Daily. “We are still working with our partners, including our contracted meteorologist team at Day Weather, to determine the potential impacts of an overnight closure to the Cheyenne NWS office.”
Cowboy State Daily visited the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Cheyenne to ask about the overnight closure and was directed to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s office of Public Affairs. A representative of that office said they would try to provide a response “by the end of the day.”
That response had not yet been received at 4:40 p.m.
Riverton Office Still 24/7
Laramie County Emergency Manager Jeanine West told Cowboy State Daily that she has been advised that the Cheyenne NWS Forecast Office will be closed from 1-7 a.m. each day, but that the Riverton NWS Office will remain open 24 hours, and will handle any calls made overnight to the Cheyenne office.
West doesn’t believe there will be much difference.
“For large events in Cheyenne and Laramie County, we request ahead of time for a daily forecast, which are sent to us first thing in the morning and throughout the day IF the weather is changing from what was originally predicted,” she said in an email to Cowboy State Daily. “Cheyenne NWS will still be providing all services to us.”
She believes fire departments or 911 dispatch contacts will still get the same level of service as before, it will just be coming from the Riverton office between the hours of 1 a.m. to 7 a.m. each day.
“We have spoken with Cheyenne NWS leadership, Darren Snively, about these changes and will continue to work with them and advise any problems or concerns that come up from our local responders. Overall, I think we will be fine.”
Sen. John Barrasso’s office said it had been told the change is due to a shortage of meteorologists.
“The National Weather Service has assured our office they will coordinate with surrounding offices to monitor overnight weather conditions for the Cheyenne area and issue warnings if needed,” Barrasso’s office said.
Rep. Harriet Hageman and Sen. Cynthia Lummis’ offices had not yet responded to Cowboy State Daily’s inquiries at the time this article was posted.
AI Isn’t There Yet
Because weather forecasts are delivered 24-7 over smartphones and computers, Day believes many people think that computers and AI are already managing weather forecasts automatically.
But that’s not actually the case.
“We’re not there yet,” Day said. “We’re not to the point where that technology, that level of computing power can have the level of accuracy where you remove the human element.”
While computers are playing an increasingly important role in weather forecasting, there are a variety of tasks it cannot yet do.
“Radar can’t see everything,” Day said. “A lot of tornado and severe weather alerts are derived from people observing the weather, not from an AI bot. Then that information is relayed to the weather service, so they can get ground truth verification.”
And, too, weather is constantly changing. While one minute it might look like a storm is going to miss an area, that can change quickly with shifting wind.
“When your forecasting cycle (for) three quarters of the day is people in Cheyenne and then the other quarter of the day is somebody else in another forecast office somewhere else, there’s going to be continuity problems,” Day said. “That’s just human nature. You’re going to get someone who is going to interpret the weather differently than somebody else in another forecast office.”
Day said that, by itself, is concerning, but the thing that bothers him the most is the overall lack of communication from the government to let stakeholders know what’s going on with what he sees as critical national infrastructure.
“There’s been a lot of taxpayer money and infrastructure put into place by the federal government to maintain and run the National Weather Service, satellites, radar, having weather forecasters in these offices,” Day said. “This is a basic government duty. And it’s really disheartening that there doesn’t appear to be a Plan B.”
Day said he’s hearing much the same from those in aviation circles, who rely on accurate weather forecasts.
“There are a lot of pilots, generally, concerned about the quality of the weather forecast information going forward,” Day said. “And it appears the government’s not giving us any idea what their plan is. Their plan appears to be, shrink it to the bare minimum without any plan of how are we going to fill the gaps? How are you going to make it better, or, at least, maintain what it is now?”
Quick Solution
Tom Fahy, who is the legislative director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization, a union representing employees, believes there is a quick solution to the sudden staffing shortage.
That would involve simply rehiring the probationary employees who were summarily fired in the beginning days of the Trump administration.
About 100 of the 600 individuals who have left the National Weather Service in the last 90 days were probationary employees, Fahy said.
“It took 15 years for 600 people to leave us before,” he added. “And now we have this instant shock to the system. We’ve lost 600 people in 90 days.”
Nationwide, Fahy said 52 of National Weather Service’s 122 Forecast Offices have been forced to close overnight, right as the nation should be focused on tornado season, which runs from March through July. About 1,200 tornadoes hit the U.S. each year, with peak activity in an area known as Tornado Alley. A map shows tornado alley includes a small piece of southeast Wyoming that extends out over Cheyenne, as well as parts of South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Some definitions extend that out to Missouri, Illinois,North Dakota, Arkansas, Montana, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, and New Mexico.
“If weather service staffing levels are not restored, communities across the country will suffer and continue to be needlessly put into harm’s way,” he said. “The administration and Congress must provide authorization to bring back probationary employees under a special hiring authority. These former Weather Service employees were already trained and prepared to meet the mission to save life and property, and they would be able to contribute immediately to the efficiency of the agency.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
