The National Weather Service was one of the many agencies to be cut by the Trump Administration. Now it will fill 450 jobs due to understaffing. 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was granted permission to fill critical positions at the National Weather Service after the Trump administration’s cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency received criticism from weather experts. The move came a week after the U.S. Navy announced it would continue sharing data from three satellites that help forecasters track hurricanes, which the Defense Department had previously said they would stop sharing. 

“Make no mistake: this data not only improves hurricane forecasting accuracy, but could make the difference between whether communities evacuate or not ahead of an approaching hurricane,” said Marc Alessi, science fellow of the Union of Concerned Scientists, to the Associated Press. 

Professor Robert Thomas, director of the Center for Environmental Communication at Loyola, expressed concern over the weather cuts, which he views as potentially dangerous for the country. 

“You can’t not have these planes that are flying into hurricanes… That’s how we know what a hurricane is,” Thomas said. “All of these things that are dropped in the sea, and all the monitoring things that are floating out in the oceans around have got to be budgeted for. The stakes are too high.”

These moves show the Trump administration stepping back from its previous efforts to cut funding for weather and climate government services, which has been one of the many areas in government to be deeply affected by DOGE’s cuts. 

For instance, the administration drew criticism last month due to the weather services’ response to a flooding in central Texas, which killed more than 100 people. 

“What happened there should be a hallmark for being prepared and being able to forecast and being able to advise people properly,” Thomas said. 

When talking about the political causes for these weather cuts, Thomas highlighted the divide between politicians in the U.S. and their constituents. 

“There’s a lot of [congress members] supporting things that are not good for their districts,” he said. “If they’re not hearing from people, then they just keep voting the way they want to vote.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.