The Weather Guys

What are the impacts of the recent cuts to NOAA and NWS?

Posted on March 10, 2025 by WeatherGuys Editor

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which includes the National Weather Service (NWS), is a vital partner in the nation’s weather enterprise. They provide essential products and services that benefit the U.S. economy and the health and safety of us all. Citizens and businesses rely on accurate and timely forecasts. Due to the inexplicable decisions of the current administration, many NOAA and NWS employees have been terminated without cause.

These recent terminations will have far-reaching consequences for public safety and the nation’s economic well-being. NOAA professionals on ‘probationary status’ are not just new employees; some have recently been awarded with career advancements resulting from their outstanding work that helps safeguard our communities by helping to keep all of us informed, prepared, and safe.

The weather enterprise of our nation includes a critical private-public partnership. The outcome of this partnership includes timely weather forecasts and information that protect people, improve livelihoods, save money, and add tremendous economic value across our nation. This successful partnership includes opportunities and responsibilities of the federal government, private business, and universities. NOAA provides crucial foundational support to this partnership, including collecting scientific observations, maintaining computer facilities, improving weather models, and providing public weather forecasts and warnings: products and services that are freely accessible to all. Universities train the future workforce while conducting research that advances our understanding of weather and climate processes. Private businesses use this foundation of data, science, and services to create value-added products for their clients.

This public-private partnership has been cultivated over many years and through persistent efforts of organizations such as the American Meteorological Society. The recent injudicious firings of NOAA and NWS employees will dismantle a critical public service and pull apart a crucially needed and successful public-private partnership.

Steve Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, professors in the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, are guests on WHA radio (970 AM) at noon the last Monday of each month. Send them your questions at stevea@ssec.wisc.edu or jemarti1@wisc.edu.

Category: History, Uncategorized

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Interview on WRN

Posted on March 7, 2025 by WeatherGuys Editor

“The Weather Guys” were recently interviewed by Bob Hague of the Wisconsin Radio Network. Check out the full interview on the WRN website:

https://www.wrn.com/uw-madisons-weather-guys-concerned-about-layoffs-at-noaa-and-nws

Category: Uncategorized

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How do we measure global cloud cover?

Posted on March 3, 2025 by WeatherGuys Editor

Because clouds are involved in the global water cycle as well as our planet’s energy gains and losses, they constitute an important component of our atmosphere, weather, and climate.

Determining global cloud cover requires observations that cover the entire planet. Observations from weather satellites provide a modern estimate of the global cloud cover. These satellites are operated by several countries and their data is shared through international agreements. Discrimination between clear and cloudy regions is a crucial first step in most applications of satellite data, such as estimating ocean temperature or assessing the health of land vegetation.

*Annual average total cloud amount over the Earth (period 1991 to 1995) derived from the ISCCP data sets (Image credit: International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project, NASA)*

Clouds are generally brighter and colder than the underlying surfaces. During daylight most clouds are detected via reflection of visible and near infrared energy coming from our sun. At visible wavelengths, snow surfaces can be as bright as clouds, making cloud detection a bit more challenging. But at other wavelengths, ones our eyes cannot detect, clouds and snow appear very different. During day, clouds are often colder than the underlying service and so infrared observations help in cloud detection. At night, contrasts in temperatures between cloud and the surface are sufficient for the detection of most middle and high-altitude clouds. However, there can be challenges with low altitude clouds, where the ground can become colder or at the same temperature as the clouds at night.

Global cloud cover is approximately 65% with the average cloud cover over ocean exceeding the average over land. Cloud cover over land tends to be greater in daytime than at night, while the ocean shows little day–night difference.

Modern satellite observations can also be used to assess additional cloud properties, such as altitude and whether the clouds are composed of ice crystals or liquid water droplets.

Category: Climate, Meteorology

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What does the National Weather Service do?

Posted on February 24, 2025 by WeatherGuys Editor

The National Weather Service (NWS) is a subdivision of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is an agency within the United States Department of Commerce. It is the nation’s official source of weather information. The NWS’s primary responsibility is providing weather forecasts, warnings, and other weather-related services to the public. The NWS plays a crucial role in safeguarding lives and property as the office collaborates with emergency management agencies, the media, and private industries to ensure that the public receives good weather information in a timely manner. The NWS disseminates weather warnings and advisories through a wide variety of communication channels, such as radio, television, websites, and mobile apps.

Kelli Barendse, meteorologist at the National Weather Service station in La Crosse, monitors an incoming storm on Tuesday, Feb 11. Station employees interpret data and trends to alert the public and local officials of weather conditions. (Photo credit: Saskia Hatvany, River Valley Media Group)

The NWS gathers and analyzes weather data from various sources, including a vast network of satellites, airplanes, radar, surface weather observations, and ocean buoys. These data, along with computer models, enable meteorologists at NWS to generate accurate and up-to-date weather forecasts, severe weather advisories, and warnings across the United States. The NWS includes a network of local weather forecast offices throughout the country. These offices have trained meteorologists who monitor regional weather conditions and generate accurate timely weather forecasts and alerts as needed.

These NWS forecasts and weather alerts are accurate, widely available and free to the public. They impact everyday life. These forecasts also support industries that rely on weather forecasts. Private industries, including TV forecasters, AccuWeather, and the Weather Channel, all use NOAA data and NWS forecasts. NOAA and NWS provide weather and climate data and forecast models that are a national treasure. The weather and climate models produced continuously by the NWS are accurate and robust. It is impossible and inefficient for private industry to provide comprehensive weather data in a reliable way that is also freely accessible to everyone.

Category: History, Meteorology

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Why does the United States have a National Weather Service?

Posted on February 17, 2025 by WeatherGuys Editor

While successfully prosecuting the Civil War against the Confederacy, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant* had learned that weather information – even if NOT in the form of a forecast – was extremely valuable for operations.

Portrait of Increase Lapham. Wisconsin’s first published scientist, Dr. Lapham was instrumental in helping to establish the National Weather Service. (Photo credit: Wisconsin Historical Society archives)

Coincidentally, in the years following the war, Dr. Increase Lapham, a Milwaukee scientist, lobbied Milwaukee’s congressman, Gen. Halbert Paine, to push for establishment of a storm warning service for the Great Lakes.

On February 2, 1870, Halbert introduced a Joint Congressional Resolution requiring the Secretary of War “to provide for taking meteorological observations at the military stations in the interior of the continent, and at other points in the States and Territories…and for giving notice on the northern lakes and on the seacoast, by magnetic telegraph and marine signals, of the approach and force of storms”.

On February 9, 1870 (155 years ago last Sunday) a sympathetic President Ulysses S. Grant* signed the resolution into law and what is now known as the National Weather Service was born.

Thus, the service began its life within the U.S. Army Signal Service’s Division of Telegrams and Reports for the Benefit of Commerce. Observations officially began on November 1, 1870. Exactly a week later, on November 8, Dr. Lapham issued the Service’s first storm warning on the approach of a storm over Lake Michigan.

On October 1, 1890, at the request of President Benjamin Harrison, Congress passed a law transferring the meteorological responsibilities of the Signal Service to the newly-created U. S. Weather Bureau which was housed in the Department of Agriculture. The Weather Bureau became the National Weather Service in 1970 with the creation of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The NWS provides value, in terms of forecasts and warnings, that by reasonable estimates account for savings of well over $10B each year to commerce across our vast country. It is important to be reminded of its exceptional value to us all given current developments in our national politics.

*Interesting footnote: An online version of General Grants memoirs is available at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4367/4367-h/4367-h.htm