National Weather Service Pendleton office reportedly won’t have forecasters overnight due to budget cuts
Barney Lerten
(Update-Adding Video and Comments from Representative Janelle Bynum)
WASHINGTON (KTVZ) — A Northwest senator sounded the alarm Monday over a report that the National Weather Service Pendleton forecast office, which provides forecasts for Central and Eastern Oregon and Washington, won’t have overnight forecaster staffing due to Trump administration job cuts and a hiring freeze.
Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, released the statement regarding news that the NWS office in Pendleton will not have overnight meteorologist staffing due to the cutbacks.
The Washington Post reports that the Pendleton office is one of seven around the country due to halt overnight forecaster staffing. It says those duties will be redistributed to other NWS offices, which are also facing cutbacks.
“The Trump Administration’s dismantling of the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administraton) workforce is crippling the National Weather Service,” Cantwell said.
“It is unacceptable that the Weather Forecast Office for central Washington state will no longer have enough meteorologists to staff overnight shifts, which will jeopardize local forecasts and warning information, which is imperative for firefighters, transportation workers, the public, and emergency managers.
“The administration should immediately approve NOAA’s request for a public safety exemption and lift the hiring freeze,” Cantwell added.
NBC News and KTVZ News reported earlier this year about expected cuts at NOAA, and the agency said the Pendleton forecast office has about 25 employees.
On February 19, Sen. Cantwell sent a letter to Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, calling on him to exempt the National Weather Service from the federal hiring freeze, and protect all National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) workers from firings “that would jeopardize the safety of the American public.”
KTVZ news reached out to our state representatives to ask about this.
We did not hear back from Clif Bentz, but Janelle Bynum had this to say: “Well, we know this adds insult to injury. So first we lost our wildfire fighting, resources, our planning resources. I brought one of those workers to the joint session to look Trump in the eye, to have him look her in the eye. And now this is a double whammy.”