NOAA is a crown jewel of the American experiment. Agencies like this don't exist to turn a profit — they are there to serve the public interest.
smfjaw 31 days ago [-]
NOAA is fantastic, I was alpine climbing in the very bottom of south america near El Chalten and NOAA is pretty much the only place to get a reliable forecast down there. Fantastic service.
GolfPopper 31 days ago [-]
I'm extremely skeptical of the entire premise of DOGE. There are vast changes being made to very large organizations, in very short timespans, with the claim that those making them know what they're doing. But the timespans in question - days to weeks at most - mean that there's no time to review anything. So those making changes do not, cannot, be making decisions based on reviews of available evidence, because they haven't given themselves time to review the evidence. Which in turn means that when they claim they do, they're either delusional or lying.
Chesterton's Fence [1] would also seem to apply here, but I mostly think it's not even getting that far. DOGE isn't doing an audit (if it was, there would be auditors, not talented young programmers) and then taking action. DOGE is executing already planned actions, while pretending to be an audit, and helping itself to a great deal of access and data along the way.
The plan seems to be to (1) "RAGE: Retire All Government Employees (...), take over the United States government and gut the federal bureaucracy. Then, replace civil servants with political loyalists"
So in essence, they think these short term problems can be reversed once the pawns are replaced.
I'm not sure they care about the problems solved. The model is probably closer to what happened to Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed.
jonstewart 31 days ago [-]
It should be noted… it’s illegal to do that.
snypher 31 days ago [-]
The vice president is out here saying that judges shouldn't be able to stop the president from doing something.
georgeplusplus 31 days ago [-]
[flagged]
pfd1986 31 days ago [-]
Fair enough. I was not familiar with the source and couldn't check all the references since some were to a private blog, but what's open check out: https://youtu.be/ZluMysK2B1E?si=_RWmR8mzGcKrmp9Z
hypeatei 31 days ago [-]
DOGE seems to be treating this like a culling in a private company but you can't do that. It's completely normal for private businesses to fail but we rely on the government as a safety net (e.g. social security, FDIC, etc..) so failure there is catastrophic.
dylan604 31 days ago [-]
> we rely on the government as a safety net
This is the issue though. They think the safety net is the problem.
mrguyorama 30 days ago [-]
Their ideology is that safety nets let useless people take up too many resources.
imajoke 31 days ago [-]
You should be skeptical, because Musk and the Musk Youth are precipitating 1-3 constitutional crises daily. And then they ignore federal judges who tell them to stop their coup.
jmyeet 31 days ago [-]
What we're seeing here is the dismantling of necessary and useful government functions by people who have no idea about the consequences of what they're doing.
I can't wait for them to come for GPS (run by DoD). All these people want to do is replace these government functions with a worse and more expensive private alternative but hey, someone gets to rent-seek massive profits, so that's OK. It's also a lesson in how for many things, them being run by a government entity is the best alternative.
If you want to see actual waste, how about a current sitting Senator and former Florida governor who, at the time, run a company that got the largest fine in history for defrauding Medicare to the tune of $1.7 billion [1], something for which nobody faced criminal prosecution.
I’d be ok with looking to streamline NOAA, double check budgets etc, but just disbanding it no.
01HNNWZ0MV43FF 31 days ago [-]
I need to trim my fingernails but I am not going to let a crazed axe murderer in my house to do so
imajoke 31 days ago [-]
Nothing about NOAA makes a dent in the federal deficit. You're thinking of entitlements (which are appropriated by Congress, a co-equal branch of government that makes laws (lest you forgot)), and defense spending.
user3939382 31 days ago [-]
I’m aware of the size of NOAA, it’s still tax dollars. If they were spending $10k that could be $8k it’s still tax dollars. That would apply to any federal agency.
WorkerBee28474 31 days ago [-]
It's will never be disbanded. The nation will always need an in-house weather service for the military advantage that provides.
imglorp 31 days ago [-]
It's also a critical part of the national air transport system -- nothing flies without a METAR -- not to mention maritime, agriculture, commerce, etc.
Some things are just reliable, public infrastructure like roads or electricity that society finances one way or another. Anyone aiming to damage public infrastructure is trying to end the country.
yongjik 31 days ago [-]
I don't think this administration even cares about America's military advantage. If they did, they wouldn't have started the term by casually insulting the sovereignty of two NATO allies.
mullingitover 30 days ago [-]
This administration is a large group of people stripping the copper wire from our walls and stealing our catalytic converters, and they are able to do this because they won by appealing to all our worst impulses.
Democracy is the idea that the voters know what they want, and they deserve to get it good and hard - H. L. Mencken
user3939382 30 days ago [-]
It’s a pretty perilous (and condescending) habit to believe that when voters side with you they’re exercising common sense and when they don’t they were tricked. It’s indicative of a lack of insight into other groups in society.
mullingitover 30 days ago [-]
> when they don’t they were tricked.
I'm not saying they were tricked at all. They were promised an administration that would strip the country down to the studs and be hateful and vicious to the most vulnerable people in society, and that's what we're getting.
We'll see if they go full Yarvin and completely delete the Constitution, nobody voted for that.
56J8XhH7voFRwPR 30 days ago [-]
The US' military advantage has nothing to do with NATO. Lets make that clear right now. NATO would be just a four letter acronym without the US military.
dylan604 31 days ago [-]
Never is a strong word to toss around with the current administration.
There's been a big push to make NOAA go away so that private companies like AccuWeather be the one everyone turns to for their data. AccuWeather has been pushing for this for a long time--even before Trump's first term. We'll see how big their donations are perceived by how gutted NOAA becomes. As for military, the Air Force has it's own weather teams as well. I'd assume others do as well.
NOAA is ripe for President Musk's axe if Uncle Trump says so
AstroJetson 30 days ago [-]
Yep, AccuWeather would love to get all of the NWS / NOAA assets and charge everyone to get a forecast.
Thank goodness that the UK and Canadian weather services have great forecasting capabilities, the public can turn to them for our weather needs.
jonstewart 31 days ago [-]
Thank you for your service, President 3939382! It’s an honor to serve in your benevolent administration.
user3939382 29 days ago [-]
Your country thanks you.
lotsofpulp 31 days ago [-]
You can double the NOAA budget and still not make any difference.
Or you could halve it and cost society tens of billions in second order effects.
evanjrowley 30 days ago [-]
When people talk abouth NOAA, they're usually referring to the sub-agency National Weather Service (NWS).
As someone who has had experience at NOAA, I'd like to point out that the way they manage information security seems really wasteful. All of the tools they need are present in the environment, but there has not been sufficient political will for the various sub-agencies to work together and integrate them holistically. The net effect is duplication of half-baked cyber security functions across NOAA. The line items are purchased but the sub-agencies lack the man-power to effectively implement what's possible because government processes are too much overhead. It doesn't help that their FISMA-reportable "systems" are their sub-agencies and not actual systems. The 'mangerial class' that Republicans have rallied against during the 2024 election is sucking the lifeblood out of NOAA's IT operations.
throw0101d 30 days ago [-]
This was all published ahead of time, and any one voting to Trump "should" have been aware this is was the plan:
> The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories.
Do you have any other sources? Project 2025 is neither authored nor endorsed by Trump. It was a Heritage Foundation conservative romper room where no idea was a bad idea, its members contributing for pats on the head, which is why it's 900 pages long.
It's Wikipedia 'Talk' page is more interesting reading than the article itself.
throw0101d 30 days ago [-]
> […] nor endorsed by Trump. […]
The non-endorsement by Trump was a lie:
> He has also played a significant role in Project 2025, an initiative led by the Heritage Foundation that aims to advance conservative, right-wing policies and reshape the federal government.[3] […] In May 2024, Russell Vought was named policy director of the Republican National Committee platform committee.[83] The Center for Renewing America (CRA), founded by Vought, is on Project 2025's advisory board.[84] CRA drafted executive orders, regulations, and memos that could have laid the groundwork for rapid action on Trump's plans when he won.[85] The CRA identified Christian Nationalism as one of the top priorities for the second Trump term.[15] Vought claimed that Trump blessed the CRA, and that his effort to distance himself from Project 2025 was just politics.[85]
You really need look no further than P2025's recommendations on 'abortion' and Trump's actual track record 2016-2020 and his moderate stated positions on it, to suspect that the Romper Room is in no way being considered a roadmap. That's a big one and many Onward Christian Soldiers have been angered by it. Too bad for them, women rule! Reducing the size of the Fed and reducing its partisan component is a natural for any incoming President. He also aims to reduce the partisan lawfare component that has been used against him, instead of leaving it in place to do its thing again. Those under the Executive branch should not operate under the assumption that they are occupying forever-jobs.
But if you're being all insinuatey there's no rules, go for it! Welcome to the world of 'played a significant role in', 'could have laid the groundwork for', 'involved with' and 'claimed that', 'been labelled as'. Those are pieces of insinuate-string used to connect real things on looneyboards such as my favorite one in "A Beautiful Mind" that became a movie trope. Even Project 2025 Wikipedia is rational enough to say "Not to be confused with Donald Trump's package of proposals, Agenda 47."
piva00 24 days ago [-]
> Too bad for them, women rule!
Except rule over their own body, right? Because you seem to have forgotten who packed the SC to undo Roe v. Wade it seems.
mmooss 31 days ago [-]
Cui bono?
One benefit to some is the continued assault on sources of truth: Academics, everyone even arguably left-wing, news media, science, now we lack a source of truth on weather. More generally, the idea of an apoltical, non-profit source of truth is actively denied and any example is destroyed. The CIA and FBI are other examples.
Without a source of truth, how can any public agreement or action form? All information becomes social media. Notice who controls that too: Meta, X, and also Bytedance will be beholden to the same people destroying all else.
throw0101d 31 days ago [-]
> Cui bono?
Barry Myers of AccuWeather for one: they charge for their services. See "The Plan to Privatize Weather Forecasts":
If NOAA discontinues free weather forecasts, everyone (news, websites, apps) will have to pay someone to get them.
beowulfey 31 days ago [-]
Honestly, I will never pay for a weather service. If I have to keep an umbrella in my bag, so be it. If it means an unexpected snow day, oh well.
Other services that depend upon weather will pass those fees down to me anyway, no reason to pay for it twice.
knappe 31 days ago [-]
Um. Are you sure you don't want to know about forecasted natural disasters? This seems rather shortsighted.
verdverm 31 days ago [-]
Notices about natural disaster should not be pay walled, full stop
dylan604 31 days ago [-]
Medical care should not be pay walled, full stop.
Oops. Looks like precedence has been set.
atmavatar 31 days ago [-]
The fact that something is done a certain way currently has no bearing on whether it should be done that way.
Healthcare is a curious example to choose, too, since US healthcare is probably one of the worst examples of corruption, waste, and inefficiency of any industry I can think of.
IntelMiner 31 days ago [-]
What will stop them?
verdverm 31 days ago [-]
Hopefully the courts, which have been found so some so far
Congress should also be weighing in, but...
nirav72 30 days ago [-]
The VP has already stated that they'll disregard court rulings. So yeah, courts are going to be useless.
dylan604 30 days ago [-]
SCOTUS has already said POTUS is immune. Anyone else not covered by that immunity would be potentially pardoned. After they are pardoned, they are free to go back to doing exactly what they were doing before. They become untouchable.
SCOTUS really screwed the public with that immunity ruling
throw0101d 30 days ago [-]
> Congress should also be weighing in, but...
(One-half of) Congress couldn't be bothered to weight in when there was an attempted insurrection / self-coup:
I see nothing wrong with private entities having to pay for weather forecasts instead of leeching off the taxpayers.
taeric 31 days ago [-]
Why would you not extend that idea to paying for gps access directly?
Simply stated, the idea is that it is a public good for businesses to know the weather as well as they can. For somewhat self evident reasons.
throw0101d 30 days ago [-]
> Simply stated, the idea is that it is a public good for businesses to know the weather as well as they can.
But not for the business who sell weather services. How can we maximize shareholder value and grow GDP if we don't financialize every possible things? /s
> The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories.
A model where a business that makes money off of the public data, after a certain time or amount of money a fee schedule kicks in where they pay back into the system seems like it would make sense.
ori_b 31 days ago [-]
One could call that a 'tax', and to keep the process streamlined, instead of itemizing the benefits that corporations get from government services, one could simply charge a percentage of profits.
opello 31 days ago [-]
That seems reasonable but I was imagining a system that allowed a window of time to bolster innovation. Maybe that's silly.
mmooss 31 days ago [-]
Private entities pay taxes too.
2OEH8eoCRo0 31 days ago [-]
Yep. NOAA is the source of all the weather data that all of your weather apps and TV stations use.
acomjean 31 days ago [-]
I remember seeing "weather.gov" on one of the monitors of a local tv news station. (they had kind of an open newsroom).
Weather.gov is a antidote from the add sponsored mess that weather websites are. Of course I suspect most people use phone apps now. But they have a lot of information on those pages, including weather discussions.
I follow this because my startup had to normalize for weather so we needed weather information. We went to "weatherunderground" (a play on a 60s era group perhaps?) and paid some money to get that weather data. They got bought by weathercompany/IBM. I had a developer account and could pull hourly weather information (I had grand plans to compare predictions vs actual) that got axed
weather.gov was always there. They don't have an api, but I love their weather graph which lets you look at a bunch of weather over the next couple days (and includes sunset and sunrise). Its very fast to read after a few days.
We don't seem to have any lesson-learning folks in play.
jmclnx 31 days ago [-]
>In 2018, an investigation by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs found rampant, pervasive and severe sexual harassment at AccuWeather
Depends upon the lesson, when it comes to harassment, the GOP learned and found ways to get the public to accept this.
Seems the only reason it failed was it seems Myers was found to be a sexual predator. These days, that seems to be a requirement to be the head of an agency.
jauntywundrkind 31 days ago [-]
The lesson seems to be that those who can keep attacking democracy again and again and again will eventually some day succeed in tearing things down.
hnburnsy 31 days ago [-]
[flagged]
TehCorwiz 31 days ago [-]
That would basically mean the government funding the satellites, computers, storage, etc. Which is basically where almost all expenditures are. So it would effectively socialize the cost but privatize the results. In essence we would have to pay twice for the data, once to the government in taxes for the equipment, then again to some private company because....why again?
hnburnsy 31 days ago [-]
If you have Pay TV, you are already paying twice for the data when it is delivered via your local news station, national news station, or The Weather Channel. Would be nice if NOAA would make some money providing its data to commercial operations.
TehCorwiz 31 days ago [-]
I can also get it online via noaa.gov or weather.gov, but I still need to have an internet connection. Does that mean I'm paying twice? I don't think paying for access to a telecommunication platform counts as "paying twice" in the same way.
TehCorwiz 30 days ago [-]
Just to add to this... even if the parent comment's conjecture is correct, under that hypothetical you're already paying twice now, and if they privatize the profits you'd be paying three times.
beowulfey 31 days ago [-]
Yeah, more instances of having to pay for things twice sounds amazing. But why stop at twice? Maybe we could pay for things three times, even.
verdverm 31 days ago [-]
Why stop a three times, put everything on a blockchain and financialize every aspect of life into micro transactions
sv123 31 days ago [-]
yOu AlReAdY dO iT sO yOu MiGhT aS wElL dO iT mOrE!
A good chunk is based on their complete climate change denial and their wish to privatize much of the US government.
Not sure what you mean by "un-avowed" Project 2025, a number of the authors are in prominent positions within the Trump administration.
usrbinbinusr 31 days ago [-]
[flagged]
imajoke 31 days ago [-]
[flagged]
blueanon 31 days ago [-]
[flagged]
hirsin 31 days ago [-]
Is this something like inverse gell-man amnesia? You're aware of the value noaa provides so you're skeptical about removing it, but when we turn the page to talk about another agency removal makes sense again?
Not attempting to dunk, I should say, but wondering how this gets modeled and if there's actually a discrepancy there
rurp 31 days ago [-]
Right, I think we're going to find that a test of "Does this sound like a waste to an uninformed person who has thought about it for five seconds" is a pretty poor framework for making sweeping changes.
paddw 31 days ago [-]
Not a fan overall of what DOGE is doing, but I disagree with your line of reasoning here. Obviously not all government agencies provide comparable amounts of value to the general public based on the resources they consume. Does one have to be an expert on the inner workings and initiatives of each of these organizations to have an opinion? Maybe, but that doesn't seem practical, outside of having some large oversight body employing many people to review this... which is just what DOGE purportedly is.
Now, is the current DOGE proceeding to do this in a reasonable way? No. But that largely comes down your assessment of the people running it, not anything implicit
vharuck 31 days ago [-]
>Maybe, but that doesn't seem practical, outside of having some large oversight body employing many people to review this... which is just what DOGE purportedly is.
The oversight body is Congress. They hold hearings, call on experts, issue subpoenas, and represent the will of the people. Plus, because Congress defines the agencies and apportion budgets for specific projects in those agencies, they're the perfect group to do oversight.
DOGE could abide by the Constitution if it had simply conducted audits, compiled findings with suggestions, and presenting those at a Congressional hearing. They should not interfere with agencies carrying out legally required duties.
It's insane how these days the "crazy leftist" point of view is that we should stick to Article I of the Constitution. We have peaceful transitions of power because the losing side knows there are still rules the winners can't break. If either side makes Constitutional crises their go-to tool, there are only two awful end-states: entrenched tyranny or violent revolution. Maybe both.
hirsin 31 days ago [-]
We have an existing oversight body, the OIG, which is a couple orders of magnitude larger than DOGE. And a reasonable statement you could defensibly make is that OIG isn't doing enough to curtail spending, the same way you or I aren't doing enough to prevent bugs in the code.
The only thing DOGE does, that OIG doesn't, is _not_ attempt to understand the value of the work being done.
The people in DOGE are of course a problem, but the process they're following is flawed from the get go, namely "judge programs based on the opinion of some uninformed outsiders".
vizzier 31 days ago [-]
> Obviously not all government agencies provide comparable amounts of value to the general public based on the resources they consume.
This doesn't seem obvious to me.
jonstewart 31 days ago [-]
As it turns out, the government actually has… the Government Accountability Office (GAO) as an agency to do just this. Agencies also have inspector general offices that focus on each of their respective agencies, too (Trump has tried to fire most of them, illegally). Congress also has the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which provides Congress with budgetary advice independent of the Executive branch.
The US Government is too large to be perfect. But I suspect it probably works far better, at scale, with less variance, and more nuance, than many HNers imagine.
mrguyorama 30 days ago [-]
>But that largely comes down your assessment of the people running it, not anything implicit
Nonsense. The very WAY doge is doing things is bad. You cannot safely shut any large body of human effort down in just a few days and not end up causing damage.
Same thing with deportations. You cannot do deportations en masse without people losing their rights or innocents being hurt.
Scale matters. Timelines matter.
mmooss 31 days ago [-]
(EDIT: My mistake; I missed what hirsin was referring to.)
hirsin 31 days ago [-]
"generally pro doge" would imply they support what doge is doing, namely shutting things down
mmooss 31 days ago [-]
I somehow overlooked that. I'll fix my comment, sorry.
lazycog512 31 days ago [-]
[flagged]
thadt 31 days ago [-]
> Post the data and let me decide for myself
NOAA has been posting the data, literally for years now [1], with forecast updates in near real-time[2]. Replacing their data products would be a non-trivial endeavor.
Consider a scenario where someone needed to predict the dispersion of an airborne chemical after an accident, in real time, to coordinate evacuation routes. That is going to require rather precise and up to date modeled weather data - the kind that anyone can go get from NOAA right now. Sometimes the benefits of a system aren't apparent until we need it.
They present a lot of factual information. Why do you call it appeal to emotion?
Also, on what do you base your claims NOAA's activities? The article is by "Atmospheric scientists Christine Wiedinmyer and Kari Bowen, who is a former National Weather Service forecaster".
> Post the data and let me decide for myself.
For everything NOAA does and every agency? Who would have the expertise to even begin to evaluate it, much less the time.
hirsin 31 days ago [-]
It's funny. We get up in arms because our boss's boss's boss wants to decide if the work we're doing this sprint is valuable - there's no way they can begin to understand what it is they pay me to do here! They've got dozens or hundreds of reports, no way they can decide if fixing this CSS bug is the best use of my time.
And then people think they can decide if the radar station detecting low altitude systems near Palau is a good investment or not.
mmooss 31 days ago [-]
'Do your own research!'
A bad boss limits everyone's abilities to what the boss understands and can do. This governing approach limits world-class scientists to what the public understands - which is essentially the tactical argument made by the GOP: It looks useless to you and me and that is our source of truth! Are you condescending elites calling us dumb?
The Dems are complicit because in about 25 years, they haven't bothered to come up with a simple, effective counterargument.
I don't know anything about weather data. I couldn't imagine overseeing these scientists or their technology.
krapp 31 days ago [-]
>The Dems are complicit because in about 25 years, they haven't bothered to come up with a simple, effective counterargument.
Because no counterargument, however simple, would be effective. Republicans mistrust "elites" and "academia" and "education" and "science" as a function of their own persecution complex and conspiratorial worldview. And yes, it does make them dumb - aggressively, proudly dumb. A lot of them want NOAA gone because they associate anything weather related with what they consider to be a vast left-wing climate change conspiracy. These are the same people who harass meteorologists because they think they control the weather. There's just no way to argue with that.
mmooss 31 days ago [-]
> Because no counterargument, however simple, would be effective.
Please pardon directness, but to get to the heart of the matter after years of these helpless arguments (and in reference to Democrat officials, not to the parent): What a bunch of losers.
This problem isn't even hard on the scale of life and politics. The #1 problem - possibly the only real problem - is their loser attitude. Who ever accomplished anything with that attitude. The GOP, in constrast, thinks the impossible is possible, never stops and barely slows down after each catastrophe, after Trump's loss, after Jan 6 ... and they have transformed the country and the world.
At least SV and HN should appreciate that. And IMHO, the constrast between the two is where much GOP support for their insanity comes from. Who supports whiny, ineffectual, helpless leaders? What's even the point? Imagine the support someone with courage, capability (including effective communication and charisma), and a plan to win would instantly garner.
evan_ 31 days ago [-]
It’s easier to destroy than to build
mmooss 31 days ago [-]
Wow, I have never heard so many excuses, and never seen excuse-making so widely accepted. To make excuses was shameful in my experience - until recently!
Never give up, said Churchill, with the Nazi military controlling continential Europe and bombing London, and most of his fellow leaders thinking surrender inevitable. Washington led the US military through the darkness and utter despair of defeat, starvation and Valley Forge:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43022337
Now victimhood and powerlessness are everywhere and your enemies could not dream of better. You outnumber them, but you put down your arms and complain.
buttercraft 30 days ago [-]
Excuses detected; no root cause analysis allowed.
mmooss 30 days ago [-]
Excuses prevent root cause analysis - that's what excuses are, that is their purpose.
drawkward 31 days ago [-]
>Post the data and let me decide for myself
Lets be honest here: you're not going to do that, because, as others have pointed out, the data is already posted...and you obviously have decided against the NOAA, without even looking at the data (because you didn't even know it was available).
But let's be charitable here: maybe you will "do your own research" aka decide for yourself. How would you go about that? Its a giant dataset, or more accurately, a giant set of datasets--probably way too much for one dude to handle...the NOAA is certainly more than one person big!
In fact, I'm sure you dont even have a relevant degree--after all, if you were a meteorologist, you would know what the NOAA is and does and certainly the fact that they post their data.
So: you wont look at the data. You arent even qualified to consider the data!
But lets be charitable again and assume you were trained in a field relevant to meteorological data. What would you compare the data to? How would you check it? You are taming the canonical source of data and want to "check it" against...what exactly?
See, this is the thing that is galling about the entire DOGE project and MAGA in general:
It is a bunch of people who are tearing things down because they dont like them. Not because MAGA can provide proof and "look into it." Nay, its just a bunch of underqualified people who are tired of made to feel dumb, because Western culture has moved beyond their small worldviews.
sv123 31 days ago [-]
> As with all of these agencies, I think it's important to caution against complete slash and burn, but I am also curious to see the receipts. Post the data and let me decide for myself.
Here you go, the data is of course available because that is what our laws require. They are under the Department of Commerce, which in total makes up less than 2% of the annual budget. If your argument is that NOAA is running on old infrastructure, then a modernization project should be prioritized, but that is _certainly_ not a way to save money.
hnburnsy 31 days ago [-]
This feels like a strawman, I haven't seen any proposal to eliminate or privatize NOAA. Just checking it looks like the un-avowed Project 2025 suggested commercializing the data which seems smart to me. Why let all these billion dollar weather channels, media companies, and apps ride on NOAA's free data? Non-commercial use of the data could still remain free.
I'm sure Elon will provide AI-generated weather reports. Someday. Might be from Mars, but we won't have to deal with the smallest uniformed service.
hnburnsy 31 days ago [-]
Fast Company, quoting Project 2025, really.
Anyhoo, PBS said of the un-avowed Project 2025...
>Project 2025 would not outright end the National Weather Service. It says the agency “should focus on its data-gathering services,” and “should fully commercialize its forecasting operations.”
ryoshu 31 days ago [-]
Why should a government agency "fully commercialize its forecasting operations"?
hnburnsy 31 days ago [-]
Several countries have commercialized their weather data to varying degrees. Here are a few examples:
United Kingdom: The UK Met Office has a commercial arm that sells weather data and services to businesses. They provide tailored forecasts, climate data, and other meteorological services to various sectors, including agriculture, energy, and transportation.
Germany: The German Weather Service (DWD) offers commercial services alongside its public offerings. They provide specialized weather data and forecasts to businesses, particularly in industries that are heavily impacted by weather conditions.
Australia: The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) in Australia has a commercial division that sells weather data and services to private companies. This includes tailored forecasts and access to specialized datasets for industries such as agriculture, mining, and aviation.
Canada: Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) provides some commercial services, allowing businesses to access detailed weather data and forecasts for a fee. This is particularly useful for sectors that require precise weather information for operational planning.
Japan: The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) provides some data for free but also has commercial agreements with private companies that utilize their data for various applications, including weather forecasting and disaster management.
European Union: The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) offers commercial access to its data and forecasting services, allowing businesses to utilize high-quality meteorological information for decision-making.
phillipseamore 31 days ago [-]
All these examples are for auxillary services, all of those you mention provide the forecasts and data used to create it for free. Don't trust AI for good answers. The only one on your list that limits the provided RAW data is ECMWF, but the raw data that is open contains all the significant elements of weather.
Great, never said other countries limit the data and ONLY sell it, but NOAA essentially does not commercialize anything (its so insignificant it doesn't show up on its budget). Maybe auxiliary services is a good start.
hirsin 31 days ago [-]
It's worth noting that many of these are service agreements, not just data. It's tailored/specialized forecasts that are being built for the customer, not simply selling them the data they give to the public for free. So doing additional work for a fee, not monetizing existing data.
sv123 31 days ago [-]
Because some morons think everything needs to be a business. We can't possibly be spending money on something unless it is generating money back, ignoring the fact that it is providing a service to make our lives better.
ryandrake 31 days ago [-]
Interestingly, nobody seems to be concerned that the military ($841.4B budget) doesn't generate revenue and isn't run like a business. But everything else in the government should pay for itself?
drivingmenuts 31 days ago [-]
Are these the same people who think that if you cut funding for HUD and other agencies concerned with helping the poor, the poor with just magically find jobs, join churches, and pay their own way like "proper humans"?
If they keep up Project 2025, I predict in about 10 years, they are going to get a very rude awakening, if not sooner.
mrguyorama 30 days ago [-]
>If they keep up Project 2025, I predict in about 10 years, they are going to get a very rude awakening, if not sooner.
You are optimistic. The supporters of Trump and his ilk ignore consistency as a rule. The exact same thing they insisted trump will never do so it's okay for him to be in power, they will then insist that actually no it's a good thing trump is doing that.
They opt in to a media environment wholly held by Rupert Murdoch, Elon, and Trump. They reject any reporting from other groups on principle. They keep saying "I haven't seen any <blank>" for any of the awful ideas this admin has because they literally don't see anything Fox News and friends haven't shown them. They get marching orders, not information.
Christ, it was only a few years ago that they insisted that Roe V Wade was "settled law" and totally safe and nobody wants to ban abortion and within a month of the lawsuit being brought, the entire narrative had switched to full bore "umm actually it's really bad ruling so we should get rid of it even though we make no effort to protect abortion rights also abortion is bad"
The true believers in Germany took until the red army was in berlin before they really fucking got that the Nazis had filled them with lies, were utterly incompetent, and had thrown millions of their best boys to die for a conspiracy theory. I hope it's also clear from things going on in germany right now, plenty of true believers didn't even figure it out then!
If trump continues Project 2025, you WILL be hearing how women are actually too hormonal and emotional to manage money and shouldn't be allowed to have credit cards. You WILL be hearing about how single mothers shouldn't be allowed to raise kids and so we should end no fault divorce.
HocusLocus 30 days ago [-]
How does the appointment of Bondi (AG) and Gabbard (DNI) fit into this evil plan? Are some women more womany than others? RvW was never 'settled law', it was a court decision and the Supreme Court said after 50 years, "enough is enough." Supermajorities of both parties neglected to codify it any which particular way or the other as a result of cowardice. It was our electeds that failed us, not the court. As the 50th year anniversary approached, you'd expect something to happen. I say this to everyone whether they are claiming victory or defeat. I didn't want it to revert back to the states, but generations of Congress evidently did.
Long term climate is not weather forecasting. Our 7-days are getting pretty good, though they run a bit warm (watch the high peaks on the temp forecast sink a little on successive days as they approach tomorrow.) Some of NOAA's long climate forecasts are actually a danger to NatSec because they misrepresent the likelihood and impact of severe Winter events. Go ahead, read between the lines of what I am saying.
30 days ago [-]
hnburnsy 31 days ago [-]
[flagged]
kevingadd 31 days ago [-]
Project 2025 architects are running the government now, so why is project 2025 not evidence?
hnburnsy 31 days ago [-]
The author of the NOAA section in Project 2025 is nowhere to be found in the new Trump admin AFAICT. If someone knows otherwise, feel free to share.
So I am going to believe that this article is alarmist about total privatization and throwing out unfounded speculation such as this...
"It would be extremely difficult to do all of that without NOAA."
"Could a private company create forecasts on its own without NOAA data?"
"And there’s a question of whether a private company would want to take on the legal risk of being responsible for the nation’s forecasts and severe weather warnings."
Project 2025 never implied any of these things. Heck even [insert your bias level here]-leaning PolitiFact said...
>"We asked several experts who are familiar with the NOAA and the National Weather Service’s work about Moskowitz’s statement. They said Project 2025 doesn’t call for the National Weather Service’s termination..."
Chesterton's Fence [1] would also seem to apply here, but I mostly think it's not even getting that far. DOGE isn't doing an audit (if it was, there would be auditors, not talented young programmers) and then taking action. DOGE is executing already planned actions, while pretending to be an audit, and helping itself to a great deal of access and data along the way.
1. https://theknowledge.io/chestertons-fence-explained/
So in essence, they think these short term problems can be reversed once the pawns are replaced.
(1) https://www.thenerdreich.com/reboot-elon-musk-ceo-dictator-d...
This is the issue though. They think the safety net is the problem.
I can't wait for them to come for GPS (run by DoD). All these people want to do is replace these government functions with a worse and more expensive private alternative but hey, someone gets to rent-seek massive profits, so that's OK. It's also a lesson in how for many things, them being run by a government entity is the best alternative.
If you want to see actual waste, how about a current sitting Senator and former Florida governor who, at the time, run a company that got the largest fine in history for defrauding Medicare to the tune of $1.7 billion [1], something for which nobody faced criminal prosecution.
[1]: https://www.factcheck.org/2014/06/floridas-medicare-fraud-fl...
Some things are just reliable, public infrastructure like roads or electricity that society finances one way or another. Anyone aiming to damage public infrastructure is trying to end the country.
Democracy is the idea that the voters know what they want, and they deserve to get it good and hard - H. L. Mencken
I'm not saying they were tricked at all. They were promised an administration that would strip the country down to the studs and be hateful and vicious to the most vulnerable people in society, and that's what we're getting.
We'll see if they go full Yarvin and completely delete the Constitution, nobody voted for that.
There's been a big push to make NOAA go away so that private companies like AccuWeather be the one everyone turns to for their data. AccuWeather has been pushing for this for a long time--even before Trump's first term. We'll see how big their donations are perceived by how gutted NOAA becomes. As for military, the Air Force has it's own weather teams as well. I'd assume others do as well.
NOAA is ripe for President Musk's axe if Uncle Trump says so
Thank goodness that the UK and Canadian weather services have great forecasting capabilities, the public can turn to them for our weather needs.
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
As someone who has had experience at NOAA, I'd like to point out that the way they manage information security seems really wasteful. All of the tools they need are present in the environment, but there has not been sufficient political will for the various sub-agencies to work together and integrate them holistically. The net effect is duplication of half-baked cyber security functions across NOAA. The line items are purchased but the sub-agencies lack the man-power to effectively implement what's possible because government processes are too much overhead. It doesn't help that their FISMA-reportable "systems" are their sub-agencies and not actual systems. The 'mangerial class' that Republicans have rallied against during the 2024 election is sucking the lifeblood out of NOAA's IT operations.
> The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories.
* https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_CHA...
It's Wikipedia 'Talk' page is more interesting reading than the article itself.
The non-endorsement by Trump was a lie:
> He has also played a significant role in Project 2025, an initiative led by the Heritage Foundation that aims to advance conservative, right-wing policies and reshape the federal government.[3] […] In May 2024, Russell Vought was named policy director of the Republican National Committee platform committee.[83] The Center for Renewing America (CRA), founded by Vought, is on Project 2025's advisory board.[84] CRA drafted executive orders, regulations, and memos that could have laid the groundwork for rapid action on Trump's plans when he won.[85] The CRA identified Christian Nationalism as one of the top priorities for the second Trump term.[15] Vought claimed that Trump blessed the CRA, and that his effort to distance himself from Project 2025 was just politics.[85]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Vought
Vought has been labelled as the 'architect' of Project 2025, and has been appointed as the director of the OMB.
"Senate confirms Project 2025 co-author as Trump budget chief"
* https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clykpgxm4n7o
But if you're being all insinuatey there's no rules, go for it! Welcome to the world of 'played a significant role in', 'could have laid the groundwork for', 'involved with' and 'claimed that', 'been labelled as'. Those are pieces of insinuate-string used to connect real things on looneyboards such as my favorite one in "A Beautiful Mind" that became a movie trope. Even Project 2025 Wikipedia is rational enough to say "Not to be confused with Donald Trump's package of proposals, Agenda 47."
Except rule over their own body, right? Because you seem to have forgotten who packed the SC to undo Roe v. Wade it seems.
One benefit to some is the continued assault on sources of truth: Academics, everyone even arguably left-wing, news media, science, now we lack a source of truth on weather. More generally, the idea of an apoltical, non-profit source of truth is actively denied and any example is destroyed. The CIA and FBI are other examples.
Without a source of truth, how can any public agreement or action form? All information becomes social media. Notice who controls that too: Meta, X, and also Bytedance will be beholden to the same people destroying all else.
Barry Myers of AccuWeather for one: they charge for their services. See "The Plan to Privatize Weather Forecasts":
* https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-what-pro...
* http://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archiv...
* https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/environment/...
John Oliver did a story about this in 2019 (Trump 1.0):
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGn9T37eR8
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Lee_Myers#Nomination_to_...
If NOAA discontinues free weather forecasts, everyone (news, websites, apps) will have to pay someone to get them.
Other services that depend upon weather will pass those fees down to me anyway, no reason to pay for it twice.
Oops. Looks like precedence has been set.
Healthcare is a curious example to choose, too, since US healthcare is probably one of the worst examples of corruption, waste, and inefficiency of any industry I can think of.
Congress should also be weighing in, but...
SCOTUS really screwed the public with that immunity ruling
(One-half of) Congress couldn't be bothered to weight in when there was an attempted insurrection / self-coup:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_impeachment_of_Donald_T...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-coup
Simply stated, the idea is that it is a public good for businesses to know the weather as well as they can. For somewhat self evident reasons.
But not for the business who sell weather services. How can we maximize shareholder value and grow GDP if we don't financialize every possible things? /s
> The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories.
* https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_CHA...
Weather.gov is a antidote from the add sponsored mess that weather websites are. Of course I suspect most people use phone apps now. But they have a lot of information on those pages, including weather discussions.
I follow this because my startup had to normalize for weather so we needed weather information. We went to "weatherunderground" (a play on a 60s era group perhaps?) and paid some money to get that weather data. They got bought by weathercompany/IBM. I had a developer account and could pull hourly weather information (I had grand plans to compare predictions vs actual) that got axed
weather.gov was always there. They don't have an api, but I love their weather graph which lets you look at a bunch of weather over the next couple days (and includes sunset and sunrise). Its very fast to read after a few days.
eg https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=42.3774&lon=-7...
Forecast discussion: https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&issuedby=b...
I really appreciate how the NWS products make it easy to create custom widgets that you can embed in a webpage.
I'm a big fan the GOES viewer: https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/goes/conus.php?sat=G16
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Lee_Myers
https://www.politico.com/story/2012/01/7-year-old-attack-on-...
Depends upon the lesson, when it comes to harassment, the GOP learned and found ways to get the public to accept this.
Seems the only reason it failed was it seems Myers was found to be a sexual predator. These days, that seems to be a requirement to be the head of an agency.
A good chunk is based on their complete climate change denial and their wish to privatize much of the US government.
Not sure what you mean by "un-avowed" Project 2025, a number of the authors are in prominent positions within the Trump administration.
Not attempting to dunk, I should say, but wondering how this gets modeled and if there's actually a discrepancy there
Now, is the current DOGE proceeding to do this in a reasonable way? No. But that largely comes down your assessment of the people running it, not anything implicit
The oversight body is Congress. They hold hearings, call on experts, issue subpoenas, and represent the will of the people. Plus, because Congress defines the agencies and apportion budgets for specific projects in those agencies, they're the perfect group to do oversight.
DOGE could abide by the Constitution if it had simply conducted audits, compiled findings with suggestions, and presenting those at a Congressional hearing. They should not interfere with agencies carrying out legally required duties.
It's insane how these days the "crazy leftist" point of view is that we should stick to Article I of the Constitution. We have peaceful transitions of power because the losing side knows there are still rules the winners can't break. If either side makes Constitutional crises their go-to tool, there are only two awful end-states: entrenched tyranny or violent revolution. Maybe both.
The only thing DOGE does, that OIG doesn't, is _not_ attempt to understand the value of the work being done.
The people in DOGE are of course a problem, but the process they're following is flawed from the get go, namely "judge programs based on the opinion of some uninformed outsiders".
This doesn't seem obvious to me.
The US Government is too large to be perfect. But I suspect it probably works far better, at scale, with less variance, and more nuance, than many HNers imagine.
Nonsense. The very WAY doge is doing things is bad. You cannot safely shut any large body of human effort down in just a few days and not end up causing damage.
Same thing with deportations. You cannot do deportations en masse without people losing their rights or innocents being hurt.
Scale matters. Timelines matter.
NOAA has been posting the data, literally for years now [1], with forecast updates in near real-time[2]. Replacing their data products would be a non-trivial endeavor.
Consider a scenario where someone needed to predict the dispersion of an airborne chemical after an accident, in real time, to coordinate evacuation routes. That is going to require rather precise and up to date modeled weather data - the kind that anyone can go get from NOAA right now. Sometimes the benefits of a system aren't apparent until we need it.
[1] https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/grib/hpcgrib.shtml
[2] https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/data/rea...
Also, on what do you base your claims NOAA's activities? The article is by "Atmospheric scientists Christine Wiedinmyer and Kari Bowen, who is a former National Weather Service forecaster".
> Post the data and let me decide for myself.
For everything NOAA does and every agency? Who would have the expertise to even begin to evaluate it, much less the time.
And then people think they can decide if the radar station detecting low altitude systems near Palau is a good investment or not.
A bad boss limits everyone's abilities to what the boss understands and can do. This governing approach limits world-class scientists to what the public understands - which is essentially the tactical argument made by the GOP: It looks useless to you and me and that is our source of truth! Are you condescending elites calling us dumb?
The Dems are complicit because in about 25 years, they haven't bothered to come up with a simple, effective counterargument.
I don't know anything about weather data. I couldn't imagine overseeing these scientists or their technology.
Because no counterargument, however simple, would be effective. Republicans mistrust "elites" and "academia" and "education" and "science" as a function of their own persecution complex and conspiratorial worldview. And yes, it does make them dumb - aggressively, proudly dumb. A lot of them want NOAA gone because they associate anything weather related with what they consider to be a vast left-wing climate change conspiracy. These are the same people who harass meteorologists because they think they control the weather. There's just no way to argue with that.
Please pardon directness, but to get to the heart of the matter after years of these helpless arguments (and in reference to Democrat officials, not to the parent): What a bunch of losers.
This problem isn't even hard on the scale of life and politics. The #1 problem - possibly the only real problem - is their loser attitude. Who ever accomplished anything with that attitude. The GOP, in constrast, thinks the impossible is possible, never stops and barely slows down after each catastrophe, after Trump's loss, after Jan 6 ... and they have transformed the country and the world.
At least SV and HN should appreciate that. And IMHO, the constrast between the two is where much GOP support for their insanity comes from. Who supports whiny, ineffectual, helpless leaders? What's even the point? Imagine the support someone with courage, capability (including effective communication and charisma), and a plan to win would instantly garner.
Never give up, said Churchill, with the Nazi military controlling continential Europe and bombing London, and most of his fellow leaders thinking surrender inevitable. Washington led the US military through the darkness and utter despair of defeat, starvation and Valley Forge: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43022337
Now victimhood and powerlessness are everywhere and your enemies could not dream of better. You outnumber them, but you put down your arms and complain.
Lets be honest here: you're not going to do that, because, as others have pointed out, the data is already posted...and you obviously have decided against the NOAA, without even looking at the data (because you didn't even know it was available).
But let's be charitable here: maybe you will "do your own research" aka decide for yourself. How would you go about that? Its a giant dataset, or more accurately, a giant set of datasets--probably way too much for one dude to handle...the NOAA is certainly more than one person big!
In fact, I'm sure you dont even have a relevant degree--after all, if you were a meteorologist, you would know what the NOAA is and does and certainly the fact that they post their data.
So: you wont look at the data. You arent even qualified to consider the data!
But lets be charitable again and assume you were trained in a field relevant to meteorological data. What would you compare the data to? How would you check it? You are taming the canonical source of data and want to "check it" against...what exactly?
See, this is the thing that is galling about the entire DOGE project and MAGA in general:
It is a bunch of people who are tearing things down because they dont like them. Not because MAGA can provide proof and "look into it." Nay, its just a bunch of underqualified people who are tired of made to feel dumb, because Western culture has moved beyond their small worldviews.
https://www.usaspending.gov/agency/department-of-commerce?fy...
Here you go, the data is of course available because that is what our laws require. They are under the Department of Commerce, which in total makes up less than 2% of the annual budget. If your argument is that NOAA is running on old infrastructure, then a modernization project should be prioritized, but that is _certainly_ not a way to save money.
https://www.fastcompany.com/91274927/trump-wants-to-dismantl...
I'm sure Elon will provide AI-generated weather reports. Someday. Might be from Mars, but we won't have to deal with the smallest uniformed service.
Anyhoo, PBS said of the un-avowed Project 2025...
>Project 2025 would not outright end the National Weather Service. It says the agency “should focus on its data-gathering services,” and “should fully commercialize its forecasting operations.”
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/services/data/external-data-cha...
https://www.dwd.de/EN/ourservices/_functions/search/search_F...
http://www.bom.gov.au/nwp/doc/access/NWPData.shtml
https://eccc-msc.github.io/open-data/msc-data/readme_en/
https://www.jma.go.jp/jma/en/Activities/nwp.html
https://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/datasets/open-data
If they keep up Project 2025, I predict in about 10 years, they are going to get a very rude awakening, if not sooner.
You are optimistic. The supporters of Trump and his ilk ignore consistency as a rule. The exact same thing they insisted trump will never do so it's okay for him to be in power, they will then insist that actually no it's a good thing trump is doing that.
They opt in to a media environment wholly held by Rupert Murdoch, Elon, and Trump. They reject any reporting from other groups on principle. They keep saying "I haven't seen any <blank>" for any of the awful ideas this admin has because they literally don't see anything Fox News and friends haven't shown them. They get marching orders, not information.
Christ, it was only a few years ago that they insisted that Roe V Wade was "settled law" and totally safe and nobody wants to ban abortion and within a month of the lawsuit being brought, the entire narrative had switched to full bore "umm actually it's really bad ruling so we should get rid of it even though we make no effort to protect abortion rights also abortion is bad"
The true believers in Germany took until the red army was in berlin before they really fucking got that the Nazis had filled them with lies, were utterly incompetent, and had thrown millions of their best boys to die for a conspiracy theory. I hope it's also clear from things going on in germany right now, plenty of true believers didn't even figure it out then!
If trump continues Project 2025, you WILL be hearing how women are actually too hormonal and emotional to manage money and shouldn't be allowed to have credit cards. You WILL be hearing about how single mothers shouldn't be allowed to raise kids and so we should end no fault divorce.
Long term climate is not weather forecasting. Our 7-days are getting pretty good, though they run a bit warm (watch the high peaks on the temp forecast sink a little on successive days as they approach tomorrow.) Some of NOAA's long climate forecasts are actually a danger to NatSec because they misrepresent the likelihood and impact of severe Winter events. Go ahead, read between the lines of what I am saying.
So I am going to believe that this article is alarmist about total privatization and throwing out unfounded speculation such as this...
Project 2025 never implied any of these things. Heck even [insert your bias level here]-leaning PolitiFact said...>"We asked several experts who are familiar with the NOAA and the National Weather Service’s work about Moskowitz’s statement. They said Project 2025 doesn’t call for the National Weather Service’s termination..."
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/sep/26/jared-mosk...
This is a replay of the "DOGE is shutting down the free filing program" alarm.