Staffing cuts at the parent agency of the National Weather Service could endanger the safety of New Yorkers

Schumer said that layoffs and spending cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration could lead to less reliable weather forecasting and dirtier Great Lakes.

Staffing cuts of 10% or more at the parent agency of the National Weather Service could endanger the safety of New Yorkers and lead to less reliable weather forecasting and dirtier Great Lakes, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer said today.

Schumer said that layoffs and spending cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration could have serious consequences for New Yorkers.

“I am deeply concerned these continuing drastic cuts will harm the emergency preparedness and safety of New York’s communities that face extreme weather,” Schumer said in a letter to a top NOAA official. “The public will suffer if these public services are not re-established.”

Schumer said that the Albany weather service office, one of five in New York state, has already suspended some of its twice-daily weather balloon launches that help forecast storms. Those balloons provide information from high altitudes, where weather systems develop.

Schumer said New York residents and farmers depend on weather service forecasts to help prepare for severe weather.

“Upstate New York communities uniquely rely on these lifesaving federal services for storm tracking and emergency preparedness, whether it be for lake effect snowstorms, flooding or even extreme wind storms and tornadoes as we saw devastated communities across the state last summer,” Schumer wrote in a letter to Vice Admiral Nancy Hann, acting undersecretary of NOAA.

A strong tornado struck the Oneida County city of Rome last July. In February, more than 10 feet of lake effect snow fell in two weeks in southern Oswego County.

Schumer also said the Michigan-based Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, which conducts research and monitors water quality, has now taken an “indefinite hiatus” from public communications.

In the letter, Schumer asked for more information on the cuts and the agency’s plans to “maintain and restore already suspended services.”

A weather service spokeswoman did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Stories by Glenn Coin