Storms may hit National Weather funding

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Severe weather season is approaching. KXAN televisions viewers rely on the First Warning Forecast -- and First Warning Weather relies on the National Weather Service for some of the data it supplies.

But just as tornado and hurricane seasons approach, funding for the National Hurricane Center and the NWS as a whole could be cut by 30 percent by this March should the resolution approved by the House also pass in the U.S. Senate.

"This is one of my big concerns: is that if there is a decrease in the quality or quantity of the data that goes into these computer models like this on that we'll use today to help us make the forecast our forecasts are going to become less accurate," said KXAN weatherman Jim Spencer.

"There is so much stuff we that we could be doing. We could make tornado warnings obsolete. Instead of giving people 15 minutes of lead time we could make tornado warnings like we have hurricane warnings right now, where could let people know 3 or 4 hours ahead of time." said Dan Sobien, president of the NWS Employees Organization.

Right now with the president's proposed 2012 budget there is enough funding to maintain current standards.

"With Congress's cuts we can't continue doing what we are doing," Sobien said.

A 30 percent cut means reduced funding for twice-daily weather balloon launches -- a key way of getting model data. Buoy and surface weather observations -- the backbone of most warning systems -- may be temporarily or permanently discontinued.

Also possible are significant delays in replacement satellites, which means all could lose data that can't be obtained any other way. There is also the matter of local offices being closed for 27 days at a time.

One cut that would affect Austin directly are the rolling office closings.

For example, KXAN weather staff gets all of its information from the Austin office. That could change to getting information from Houston if the Austin office is closed -- or Dallas or Corpus Christi. No matter what, that's a long way from home.

"They don't know our local area. Imagine a tornado outbreak or a flash flood situation like with Tropical Storm Hermine. -- but our local national weather service office is closed down at the time," Spencer said.

Another big blow to Texas: A bulk of the military Hurricane Hunter flights from NWS will be grounded, leaving meteorologists to have to fend for themselves on the ground.

"And that's a step backward; we're supposed to be going forward in technology so that's really concerning!" said Spencer.

"You're really risking people's lives here," said Sobien. "In fact, I'll go as far as to say that it might not be in Austin or even in central Texas but somewhere someone around the country is going to lose [his or her] life because of this bill."