Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Well, howdy there, internet people. It's Belle again. So today, we're going to talk about how Trump's cuts did not help Alaska. Western Alaska was hammered by powerful storms spawned by Typhoon Halong.
Chapter 2: How did Trump's budget cuts affect weather prediction in Alaska?
The storms were devastating. It didn't take long for reporting to surface that, surprise, Trump's cuts to America's weather prediction services made the forecast less accurate.
The National Weather Service uses weather balloons to obtain a lot of data, but ever since the Department of Government Efficiency cut staff and programs they don't seem to have understood, the weather balloon data has been limited because the balloons haven't been launched. Balloon data is fed into computers and contributes to NWS's global forecast system. The storm hit western Alaska.
There are six stations that launch balloons on the western coast of Alaska. Exactly none are operating the way they should right now. Some aren't launching any balloons. Some are only launching half the typical number.
Chapter 3: What impact did Typhoon Halong have on Western Alaska?
The forecast for the storm consistently showed it to the northwest of the areas that eventually became some of the most heavily hit. It's relatively safe to assume that additional data would have made the forecast more accurate and helped people.
On Monday, Coast Guard Captain Christopher Culpepper said, Several of these villages have been completely devastated, absolutely flooded, several feet deep. This took homes off of foundations. This took people into peril, where folks were swimming, floating, trying to find debris to hold onto in the cover of darkness. The forecast is being called a major model fail by experts.
On Thursday, the model showed the storm delivering the most impact to the Bering Strait. Experts know the lack of data impacted forecasting. But without the data to do a data denial experiment, they can't say for sure how much Trump's doge cuts hurt. Rick Thoman, who is a meteorologist with the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, said, quote,
I don't know how we could ever know what impact not having all of these in the days leading up to Halong had. You can't do data denial experiments if there's no data to deny, right? So to my mind, it must have had some impact on model performance. Whether it was a lot or whether it's a little, we just don't know.
It's important to remember this was a choice the Trump administration made and the NWS is still trying to rehire after the Trump administration needlessly took a wrecking ball to the agency. Mark Roberts is the head of the State Emergency Operations Center and he drove the devastation home when he said, quote,
The folks that were in houses that were floating and didn't know where they were was one of the most tragic things our folks in the state EOC have ever faced. The whole motto of the Doge fiasco was to move fast and break things. I hope they're looking at the devastation in western Alaska.
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Chapter 4: Why are weather balloons crucial for accurate forecasting?
It certainly appears they managed to help break things. As of Monday, there were 1,400 people still in shelters from the communities impacted by the storms. Anyway, it's just a thought. Y'all have a good day.