Did National Weather Service Cuts Worsen the Disaster in Texas?

There have been questions raised about whether cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS) by the Trump Administration resulted in forecasters not being able to warn people of the possibility of flooding.  

Alan Gerard, a recent retiree from NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory wrote on Substack that  “. . . the NWS did a solid job,” and “. . . there is little evidence that any of the recent cuts to NOAA/NWS negatively impacted the agencies’ services for this event.” He added that the disaster shows the importance of a robust and resourced National Weather Service, which can provide accurate warnings and forecasts.

FactCheck.org, a non-partisan nonprofit, wrote that the Trump administration has proposed cuts that would close the National Severe Storms Laboratory, Gerard’s former office, which develops tools to predict flash flooding. The NWS has lost 600 people from buyouts and layoffs, but Tom Fahy of the NWS Employees Union told NBC News that weather forecasting offices had adequate staffing and resources, and they issued timely forecasts and warnings before the storm. Nevertheless, he was concerned about unfilled leadership positions, such as a meteorologist whose job is to coordinate with the media.

The disaster has also raised questions about why Kerr County, where the flooding occurred, did not have an adequate warning system that would include sirens. The New York Times reports that last October, FEMA warned of potentially dangerous flooding in the county with the loss of life and damage to property. However, local officials were rebuffed by the state in their attempts to secure the $1 million it would take to build the system.

Researchers led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison say that hundreds of dormant subglacial volcanoes worldwide—particularly in Antarctica—could become active as global warming accelerates melting. Thick layers of ice can keep a lid on eruptions by pressing Earth’s crust sitting atop magma chambers. Once a glacier retreats, the gases in the magma can expand—and the volcanoes explode. 

The team analyzed crystals in erupted rocks across six volcanoes in southern Chile, including the now dormant Mocho-Choshuenco volcano, to investigate how the Patagonian Ice Sheet’s advance and retreat influenced past volcanic behavior. They found that during the peak of the last ice age (around 26,000–18,000 years ago), thick ice cover suppressed the volume of eruptions and allowed a large reservoir of magma to accumulate. When the ice sheet retreated rapidly, the sudden loss of weight caused the crust to relax and gases in the magma to expand, which triggered explosive volcanic eruptions.

The link between glacial loss and volcanic activity has been known since the 1970s, when eruptions in Iceland were linked to retreating ice, but the team says it could happen elsewhere, like parts of North America, New Zealand, Antarctica, and Russia, so they warrant closer attention. Lead author Pablo Moreno-Yaeger says that eruptions can cool the planet— temporarily—but multiple ones can accelerate global warming by pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. That creates a feedback loop, where melting glaciers trigger eruptions, which in turn can further warming and melting.

The research was presented at the Goldschmidt geochemistry conference in Prague on July 8.

The single largest loan from the EU of $140 million will be for repair to three plants belonging to the country’s biggest hydropower company. In another project, water is being pumped using power from 40 solar panels to supply a city, and utility managers are urging more such solutions to ensure drinking water is available 24/7.

FastCompany reports that Ukraine is already adding solar panels to school and hospital rooftops and placing batteries in their basements. Similar projects are being developed at multi-family housing buildings. Additionally, renewable technology education centers are launching—even in coal mining areas—for training on wind turbines, solar panels, and heat pumps. 

For more accurate forecasts, utilities rely on historical data to predict future performance, and recently this has meant using AI with Deep Learning. However, AI can be only as good as the data it’s fed, which can be scarce in rural areas, so researchers at Charles Darwin University in Australia investigated whether adding Indigenous knowledge to the mix would enhance accuracy, given First Nations peoples have been observing natural cycles for thousands of years.

The team integrated information from seasonal calendars of the Tiwi, Gulumoerrgin, Kunwinjku, and Ngurrungurrudjba First Nations communities in northern Australia and found that forecasts improved by 14.6 percent and had a 26.2 percent reduction in errors compared to a baseline model.

Unlike our modern calendars with four seasons, ancient ones developed by First Nations can range between three and seven seasons based on local ecological cues, such as plant and animal behaviors, which are closely tied to changes in sunlight and weather patterns. The authors say Australian First Nations or Aboriginal people are the original custodians of the land, with diverse cultures and knowledge systems that have been sustained for over 60,000 years. That wisdom can reflect nuanced environmental shifts that would make forecasts more precise.

The team’s new dataset, namely AliDKA,2 is the first to incorporate First Nations knowledge and could be a valuable tool for advancing solar in rural areas, especially in the places where Indigenous peoples live. 

The study was published in IEEE Open Journal of the Computer Society.