As the severe weather season approaches, meteorologists in Nebraska and South Dakota will have to do without a reliable source of atmospheric data.
Citing staffing challenges, the National Weather Service announced it would suspend the typical twice-daily launches of weather balloons at five local offices and reduce launches to once a day at six others. A federal hiring freeze instituted by President Donald Trump coupled with layoffs of probationary employees across the federal workforce have worsened existing staffing shortages at local weather forecast offices.
Midwest meteorologists say the loss of data is likely to lead to forecasting challenges in a region known for volatile, unpredictable weather. Brian Smith, who spent 29 years as the warning coordination meteorologist at Omaha’s NWS office before retiring in 2023, said he’s never seen this kind of interruption.
“There were times when there were… some limitations on releases, but nothing like this,” Smith said. “This is unprecedented.”
For decades, 92 NWS offices in North America and the Pacific Islands have launched weather balloons twice per day. The helium or hydrogen-filled balloon is attached to an electronic device called a radiosonde, which tracks the balloon’s location and sends back atmospheric data like wind speed, dew point, air pressure and temperature. That data is used to inform short and long-term computer-based weather prediction models, and is particularly useful to meteorologists during periods of severe weather.
Nebraska was hit particularly hard by the cuts. There are three NWS offices in the state, located in Hastings, North Platte and Omaha. As of March 20, the North Platte office launches just one balloon per day, while the Omaha office suspended balloon flights entirely. The Hastings office does not launch weather balloons.
The situation in South Dakota is similar: Like Nebraska, the state has three local offices. The Rapid City office suspended balloon observations, and the Aberdeen office reduced flights to once per day. The third office, located in Sioux Falls, does not launch weather balloons.
“This North-Central part of the country is really getting hit hardest with the loss of this data,” said Laura Edwards, South Dakota’s state climatologist. “This is also severe weather territory and winter weather. We see the extremes on both sides, and I think this is a real big loss.”
A handful of other NWS offices have also cut back on balloon launches. Offices in Gray, Maine, and Albany, New York, will perform the twice-daily launches “when staffing permits.” Launches from offices in Gaylord, Michigan; Grand Junction, Colorado; Green Bay, Wisconsin; and Riverton, Wyoming, were reduced to once a day. The impacted offices will be able to launch weather balloons for special observations “as needed” and will do so during periods of severe weather.
This isn’t the first time balloon launches have been suspended or reduced, but it is the first time such widespread, staffing-related reductions have occurred in recent history. NWS offices in Denver, Colorado, and Tallahassee, Florida, have paused launches since 2022 and 2024, respectively, due to an ongoing helium shortage. Balloon launches from Chatham, Massachusetts, have been paused since 2021 after coastal erosion led to dangerous conditions at the launch site.
The extent to which forecast accuracy will suffer as a result of the cuts will likely depend on how long the reductions last. Eric Hunt, an agricultural meteorologist with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said the “worst-case scenario” is forecasting accuracy going back to where it was in the 2000s and early 2010s. That wasn’t the “dark ages” of forecasting, he said, but it would mean less warning time for potential severe weather and less accurate longer-term forecasts.
“We don’t know the degree of forecast skill that will be lost because of this,” Hunt said. “It’s possible it could be significant, it’s possible it could be relatively trivial.”
Federal hiring freeze fuels existing staffing crisis
The Trump administration has laid off several hundred employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which the NWS is a component of, since late February. Most of those terminations were probationary employees. And NPR reports the administration has plans to slash another 1,000 NOAA jobs.
It isn’t clear how many, if any, NWS employees at local offices were terminated as part of those initial cuts. Edwards said her conversations with local officials in South Dakota indicated staffing shortages existed before Trump took office, and the issues were exacerbated by the federal hiring freeze that went into effect on Jan. 20.
Smith, the former Omaha NWS employee, echoed Edwards’ thoughts. He said NOAA was making progress in getting local offices back to full staffing levels prior to the hiring freeze. A 2024 congressional analysis found only half of the country’s NWS offices were “ideally staffed.”
The Omaha office’s website shows six vacant positions, including four meteorologists. The federal hiring freeze makes exceptions for positions integral to public safety, but meteorologists have not been included in that category. Staff at local NWS offices are not permitted to answer questions about the suspension of weather balloon flights, and the national public affairs office did not respond to requests for comment.
At a press conference Thursday, the Omaha office’s head meteorologist said the office has been about half-staffed for more than a year. They opted to suspend weather balloon launches to focus on real-time analysis and tracking potential severe weather.
“They’ve been understaffed for too long, and now there’s just no prospect for them to get back to full staffing, and they just can’t sustain it anymore,” Adam Houston, an atmospheric sciences professor at UNL, said of the Omaha office. “I’m kind of surprised they were able to withstand low staffing for this long.”
In Nebraska, political pushback to the pauses is emerging – including from Republicans who are otherwise largely supportive of Trump’s efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce. U.S. Rep. Mike Flood, who represents Nebraska’s 1st Congressional District, said in a statement Wednesday that he’s seeking answers on the staffing challenges.
A spokesperson for 2nd District Rep. Don Bacon, who represents the Omaha area and has been a more vocal critic of the Trump administration than most of his Republican congressional colleagues, said he is working with the Omaha NWS office to gather information on its needs. In a tele-town hall on Wednesday, Bacon said he intends to garner support from other lawmakers in impacted districts before sending a letter to The White House.
Far-reaching impacts of less weather data
If the suspensions and reductions in weather balloon flights persist, meteorologists said the impacts will be felt beyond Nebraska and South Dakota.
Weather systems typically move from west to east. That means forecasts in states like Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico can inform forecasts in Nebraska and South Dakota. Atmospheric data from Nebraska and South Dakota can help inform forecasts in Iowa, Missouri and Illinois.
“The missing data here affects other places, not just us,” Nebraska State Climatologist Deborah Bathke said. “The atmosphere doesn’t stop at state or National Weather Service office boundaries.”
Weather balloon data is also routinely used in longer-term models, like monthly and seasonal outlooks or longitudinal climate studies. Farmers often rely on seasonal forecasts to inform their decisions on planting or irrigation.
There is no way to recover the data lost with the reduction in weather balloon flights, which Bathke said could affect researchers’ understanding of climate change and other weather phenomena. She and other meteorologists hope resources will be allocated to local NWS offices so they can resume balloon launches in the near future. The cost savings aren’t worth the potential risk to public safety, she said.
“It’s a big impact … for what’s probably a relatively small cost compared to the whole federal budget,” Bathke said. “It’s data that we can’t get any other way.
This story first appeared on Nebraska Public Media. This version was produced in partnership with Harvest Public Media, a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.