SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (South Dakota News Watch)

South Dakota’s three National Weather Service (NWS) forecast offices are short of staff and sending up fewer weather balloons that gather important data in response to federal budget cuts and a hiring freeze, as tornado and thunderstorm season ramps up.

The NWS, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), has 122 Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs) throughout the United States. Forecasting offices around the country are feeling the effects of federal cuts and hiring freezes, according to The Associated Press.

South Dakota’s three WFOs in Aberdeen, Rapid City and Sioux Falls cover 90 counties in five states.

Fifty-five of the WFOs nationwide have a job vacancy rate of more than 20%, according to the AP data, which was accurate as of March. Vacancy rates of 20% or higher constitute “critical understaffing” according to the AP. The South Dakota offices are among those with open positions that aren’t being filled:

• The Rapid City WFO vacancy rate was highest in the state, at 41.7% of positions open. The Rapid City office covers 16 counties in South Dakota and three counties in Wyoming.
• The Sioux Falls vacancy rate was 21%, which is around the current national average for WFOs. It covers 43 counties in South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska.
• Aberdeen’s office had a 13% vacancy rate, a relatively low number compared to national averages. The Aberdeen WFO covers 26 counties in South Dakota and two counties in Minnesota.

South Dakota state climatologist Laura Edwards said the federal hiring freeze is one of the contributing factors to South Dakota WFO’s understaffing – and offices in the Northern Great Plains states are hit disproportionately hard.

“It’s those offices that are already hard to staff in Wyoming, rural Nebraska, South Dakota,” Edwards said. “Those areas often struggle to hire staff to start with, and then you compound … the hiring freeze with all the DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) cuts. And the offices that are already understaffed just get hit many more times.”

Some U.S. offices have started to close overnight to combat understaffing, while others have decreased the number of weather balloons they’re releasing, including at the Rapid City and Aberdeen offices.

“In those overnight hours, you can still see severe weather in the summer seasons,” Edwards said. “So I think our best hope, crossing fingers for South Dakota, is that we don’t have a lot of severe weather this year due to the low staffing levels that they have.

All three WFOs referred calls for comment to the national office, which provided News Watch with a statement:

“The National Weather Service continues to meet its core mission of providing life-saving forecasts, warnings and decision-support services to the public, our partners and stakeholders,” said Kim Doster, communications director for NOAA. “In the near term, NWS has updated the service level standards for its weather forecast offices to manage impacts due to shifting personnel resources.

“These revised standards reflect the transformation and prioritization of mission-essential operations, while supporting the balance of the operational workload for its workforce. NWS continues to ensure a continuity of service for mission-critical functions.”

NWS launching fewer weather balloons

One way offices have responded to fewer staff is by reducing the release of weather balloons. Weather balloons are typically deployed twice daily at the same time by WFOs across the country. The data collected from weather balloons are the basis for starting forecasts, Edwards said.

“I think the real issue that we’re all keyed in on with the weather balloon data is that the missing data now is all kind of in the same part of the country,” said Russ Schumacher, Colorado state climatologist and professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University.

“There’s this hole over the Great Plains and into the Rocky Mountains where there used to be a lot of weather balloon data and now there isn’t.”

The Rapid City WFO suspended the regular release of weather balloons in March, according to a March 20 public information statement from the National Weather Service. Another statement released that day announced that the Aberdeen office was among six U.S. offices reducing weather balloon flights to once daily.

Severe weather season could provide more challenges

One area of concern for Edwards is losing coordination ability. The warning coordination meteorologist at the forecast offices is tasked with providing information to county emergency coordinators, schools and the general public when there are risks for severe weather.

The earliest tornado in South Dakota history happened this year in February, the only recorded twister in the state so far this year.

And several towns have been either leveled or heavily damaged in the past few decades by severe tornadoes.

Recent tornadoes killed more than 20 people in the Southeast. Kentucky was hit particularly hard.

“The (storm) in Kentucky was a very significant, big tornado system, or a group of tornadoes,” Edwards said. “And so I don’t know how much you can attribute to the staffing losses at the forecast offices. But in the North Central (Great Plains) region here, there’s a lot of offices that are really hurting for staff.”

Residents of several South Dakota communities know firsthand the value of timely warnings:

• In 1998, six were killed in an F-4 tornado in Spencer, about 45 miles west of Sioux Falls. “Most of the town’s 190 buildings” were destroyed, according to the NWS. Spencer’s tornado siren never went off as it lost power from the storm.
• In 2014, a F-2 tornado in Wessington Springs, about 40 miles southwest of Huron, had wind speeds that reached up to 135 mph.
• In 2015, a tornado touched down on Mother’s Day in Delmont, about 90 miles southwest of Sioux Falls. Nine people were injured.
• In 2019, three tornadoes hit Sioux Falls within minutes of each other, causing damage and closing several businesses until they could rebuild.

AI’s potential

Could artificial intelligence applications fill in the forecasting gaps?

AI and machine learning are evolving rapidly in the weather prediction field, according to Schumacher.

The big question is, ‘What’s the correct balance of responsibilities for human forecasters versus automated systems,?’ he said.

Human forecasters don’t spend much time creating numerical weather prediction models, such as predicting the high temperatures for the 10-day forecast, Schumacher said.

“There’s a lot of potential and a lot of new things coming down the line to improve forecasts there,” he said.

However, AI systems can’t put forecasts in context, he said.

“Like any federal agency, sure, there could be some efficiencies. But I don’t know at this point, anyway, that we can fully go away from humans in the forecast offices,” Schumacher said. “I think that’s a little bit too risky right now.”

Edwards also affirmed the need for that human element.

“The weather service has a unique perspective where they collect a lot of data from their observers and they have a really good handle on what’s going on precipitation-wise and all that for their specific region. And so, we try to do our best to fill in the gaps and try to understand what’s going on there in every county of the state. But without all those eyes and ears out there, it’s a little different,” she said.