Beyond the clouds: What really goes into weather forecasting?

Good morning, everyone. Kevin Deitch, National Weather Service, St. Louis. Just wanted to give you a quick update this morning

A weather update following a natural disaster. That's what we're expecting for today

An update to keep cleanup crews safe as they clear what Mother Nature has left behind

Temperatures will be nice and cool. As it's not just about forecasting, it's a matter of keeping people safe

Keep those rain chances and thunderstorm chances in through next week. When communities experience extreme weather, it's these regional outposts that work every day to serve the public

The National Weather Service is a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA

It's also a branch that has seen significant cuts under the Trump administration

And with recent scrutiny over the ability of forecasters to do their jobs, especially after deadly flooding in Texas

we wanted to see what kind of work goes on at a local office

and measure what impact their work has on the community. These images are what Kevin Deitch and the rest of the staff

at the St. Louis Region National Weather Service did not want to see

They are the images from an F3 tornado that ripped through the city on May 16th

It's sobering. It's something you don't want to see. But at the same time, we think we're saving lives when we do it

On the day of the storm, it was all hands on deck. That means all 25 employees played a role in warning the community

This means two sets of eyes on each key position, radar, warning systems, flood stages, communication with the media, just to name a few

It's really important to have two people to kind of check each other and making sure that we're not missing anything

And another big piece of it is when we actually draw our warnings our polygons we really careful about what counties we want to include It also means these same individuals ventured out after the storm to see the destruction left behind

It's members of the NWS that tour the devastation to rate the damage level that can ultimately lead to government aid

Seeing places that you've been, areas that you used to be around, just devastated

Storm warnings and surveys are a large part of what meteorologists do at regional offices

But it's not all. One of the main things that we do kind of day-to-day routinely are what we call terminal aerodrome forecasts, or TAFs, airport forecasts for simplicity

That's six airports in the St. Louis region that rely on the data shared from this weather station

You know, planes need a lot of information from the weather to land, right

So they need to know wind direction. That affects what runway they use

Typically, they want to land into the wind. They want to know visibility. You know, how are they going to be able to see the runway

They want to know how low those clouds are, how low that cloud deck is. And so it's a big piece of our job to give them that information

So we do these airport forecasts every six hours. For Lambert, given it's an international airport with a lot more traffic

we do their forecasts every three hours. The summer months are particularly busy

What you see here, these little dots, those are what we call our DSS events

our decision support service events. and what those are are people in the community

public safety officials have asked us to kind of keep a weather watch on all those events for the day

All of those little dots are an outdoor event where public safety is in play

You might be at a concert, have no idea that the National Weather Service is involved, we're actually keeping an eye for it here from the office which is pretty cool They can make the warnings and hope they will be heated as was not the case on July 4th in Texas when the Weather Service issued a warning 90 minutes before the flood yet it was ignored

The Weather Service presence is not always about the weather. We actually do hazmat support

So you think of, you know, if there's a chemical spill or, you know, there's nitric acid

God forbid, leaking into the atmosphere, we can provide first responders with a plume of where that's going to go

and not just where it's going to go now, but for first responders when they're trying to figure out where to evacuate

We asked Deitch whether artificial intelligence could eventually take over. While some automation is already in use, he says it's the human judgment that matters most

like coordinating with road crews during a snowstorm or deciding when to call in the National Guard for disaster cleanup

Those are not decisions AI can make from data alone. AI also cannot send up a weather balloon, collect the data

then decide what piece of the weather puzzle fits into a forecast. AI simply spits out data

We rely so much on our partners, on our TV meteorologists to convey that information for us

but we're kind of the ones in the background, you know, diagnosing the radar, using the scientific research and knowledge that we have to put those warnings out

and we really try to find that balance of not warning too much, but making sure we hit, you know, the big things to make sure that people stay safe

With all these levels of public service, starting salary, $30,000. The men and women who make sure your planes take off safely top out at $100,000

So why do they do it? I'm blessed in the sense that I've known, I've wanted to be a meteorologist since I was six years old

This is not a job, this is a passion, it's a calling. Congressman Mike Flood of Nebraska is among a coalition on Capitol Hill working to protect the jobs of those working in public safety You know it a core public safety function of the United States government It is one of the most trusted agencies by Americans in this era of very divisive issues

Which is why Congressman Flood wants to make sure the National Weather Service and its parent, NOAA

not only receive a distinction of public safety, but also stay a part of the federal government

If you were to privatize this, think about how we'd have trouble with accountability because what the National Weather Service does is it ripples through aviation

In June, the congressman introduced the Weather Workforce Improvement Act, a bipartisan-backed bill that grants the National Weather Service the ability to hire positions based on the need for public safety

And it will go a long way to give the agency more options to maintain its workforce when a federal buyout or job cuts are looming as directed by the executive branch

A commitment the congressman is willing to stand up for. We take accurate weather forecasting for granted because we've had it so good for so long

And we've even let some of our radar systems kind of fall into disrepair

We need to make sure we're investing and we have the best radar and we have the best technology

And the peace of mind that the people predicting storms while we sleep at night have a passion to protect

There are still people my age that don't know what they want to do for a living. I've known since I was a kid, so I get to do my hobby as a job, and it's pretty awesome

House Referendum 3809 currently sits in the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee

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