Extreme Weather Slams the Midwest and Southern U.S. Amid Staffing Shortages at the National Weather Service

Over the weekend and through Monday, devastating tornadoes, storms and hail slammed parts of the Midwestern and Southern United States, killing more than 25 people and razing dozens of homes. As survivors take stock of their tattered property, they’re also prepping for more severe weather today and throughout the week. Meanwhile, the storm front is expected to expand farther eastward. 

The storm system poses the first major spring weather stress test for the National Weather Service, which has faced widespread layoffs and program cuts under the Trump administration. Since President Donald Trump was elected, nearly 600 people have left the NWS through a combination of firings and retirements, equivalent to around 10 percent of the agency’s total staff. 

This has left some regions significantly understaffed ahead of one of the deadliest extreme weather seasons of the year. 

Earlier in May, the five living former NWS heads released an open letter warning that these cuts to staff and forecasting efforts will lead to “needless loss of life.” Early reports show that shuffling around staff has helped NWS respond to the most severe tornadoes in Kentucky. But experts say that hamstrung weather centers could lead to many extreme weather-related deaths in the coming hurricane season. 

Stormy Days: At the end of last week, warm and wet air from the Gulf of Mexico blew northward, colliding with cooler, drier air from the Western U.S. The clash of these weather systems triggered intense storms that violently carved through the Midwest and South.

More than 100 tornadoes were reported over five days, Yale Climate Connections reports, smashing into parts of Kentucky, Texas, Missouri, Virginia and states in the Great Lakes region. At least 19 people were killed in Kentucky, with 10 more hospitalized with critical injuries, according to Gov. Andy Beshear. Several other people died during the storms in Missouri and Virginia. 

States across the Midwest and parts of the South also faced hail, unusually high temperatures and torrential downpours. The storms knocked out power for thousands around the Great Lakes region, and many families are salvaging what they can from destroyed homes, The Associated Press reports. However, the onslaught isn’t over just yet: Forecasters warn that flash floods and tornadoes could extend through the middle of the week. 

McKayla Goforth, a farmer in south central Kentucky, was spared damage in the first tornado and stormfront that hit the region over the weekend. But the area where her parents live, which includes the Mount Victory and Poplarville neighborhoods, got “hit hard,” she told me.

“The area feels forgotten about,” she told me in a message. Her parents’ home was spared by the weekend’s storms, but “many are still without power, shelter or means of transportation.” 

Goforth is now preparing her farm for more intense weather this week. 

“Most people would love to think of animals being safe and warm in barns during bad weather however when there’s even a chance for tornadoes or strong winds the safest place for livestock is outside,” she told me in a message. “It’s better for them to be wet and uncomfortable than [to] have an entire barn cave in on top of them.” 

Other preparation tasks include disconnecting the electric fence that runs across a creek on her farm, feeding the livestock extra grain and pulling the bass boat and tractor from the barn because their insurance doesn’t cover what’s in the barn if it falls. Goforth lives in a mobile home so she has secured shelter for her and her family at a local church, but their farm dogs may not be allowed to join at the shelter. 

“I know our house dogs can go and be kenneled with us but I’m worried to death about my others,” she said. “The reality of this storm has scared us into looking into burying a container for a storm shelter in the future.”

While threats are expected to calm a bit by Wednesday, late May marks the peak of spring weather season, so forecasters warn of more intense storms next week in the Southern Plains. Despite this looming threat, the NWS says that NOAA weather radio transmitters at its Louisville office will be down through Wednesday for a mandatory system upgrade that will affect Kentucky and south central Indiana.

“Our Kentuckians that rely on the NOAA alerts that come out through the weather radio you might purchase at Walmart is not going to be operational,” Eric Gibson, director of Kentucky Emergency Management, told local Louisville news station WHAS11 News on Monday. “As the circumstances have unfolded, it went down at a time when we could use that service, and when Kentuckians would be counting on that service.”

I reached out to the National Weather Service to ask why these updates were still taking place during an extreme weather event. 

“The National Weather Service (NWS) Louisville, KY office will be conducting a required, scheduled update to the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System,” said Mike Kochasic, a warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service Louisville office, in a statement. There will be backup forecast and warning operations in other offices around the region, according to the agency. “No impacts to our core services of forecast products and weather watches, warnings and advisories are expected during this period.” 

Research shows that climate change is supercharging spring weather, bringing wetter storms and larger hail over the long term. The climate connection with tornadic activity is still unclear, but trends seem to indicate that Tornado Alley, which traditionally runs through Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas, could be shifting east and north into states like Pennsylvania, as my colleague Kiley Bense reported in September. 

A Political Storm: Just weeks before this deadly weather front arrived, five former NWS directors published a letter warning that the recent cuts to the agency’s funding and staff could cost peoples’ properties and lives. 

In the letter, they discussed how recent limits to weather monitoring programs could impact everything from farmers’ ability to plant and harvest crops to tourists’ plans to travel. My colleague Dennis Pillion recently reported on the National Weather Service’s announcement that it is reducing the number of weather balloons it launches across the country, which could hamper the ability to forecast extreme weather like the storm fronts clobbering the Midwest and South.

The former directors also stressed that the widespread staffing shortages due to layoffs will permeate all lines of work at the agency, particularly during extreme weather events. 

NWS workers’ “dedication to public service — and public safety — is unparalleled,” the letter reads. “They will often sleep in weather forecast offices to make sure poor weather conditions don’t stop them from being on time for their shifts to do their critical work. They stay at their stations during hurricanes, tornadoes and other severe storms, even when extreme weather affects their own families.”

In a recent update, the Trump administration announced that weather monitoring will no longer be around the clock in four of the agency’s 122 weather forecasting offices due to staffing shortages, The Washington Post reports. Staffing shortages will primarily impact offices in the West, the Plains and the Eastern U.S. 

NWS was able to shuffle around enough employees to staff the weather office in eastern Kentucky when the storm was moving through over the weekend, CNN reports. But these cuts could limit the agency’s ability to steadily monitor conditions, issue forecasts and support communities ahead of and during an extreme weather event. That’s what Tom Fahy, the legislative director of the National Weather Service Employees Organization, a union representing agency workers, told The Post. Even before Trump was inaugurated, the NWS was about 5 percent below adequate staffing levels. 

I asked the National Weather Service about the cuts and if they are impacting response efforts. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, its parent agency, responded.

“In the near term, NWS has updated the service level standards for its weather forecast offices to manage impacts due to shifting personnel resources,” said Kim Doster, communications director for NOAA, in a written statement. “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.”

Tierra Curry, a Kentucky resident and senior scientist at the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, said the last few days illustrate how agency dismantling by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency harms Americans. 

“As to the big picture, none of the DOGE cuts are actually about efficiency and they will all end up costing more money in the long run because of the damage they are causing,” she told me over email. Curry was traveling this weekend and able to avoid the storm in her area, but others were trapped in the heart of it. “The Trump administration’s attacks on science are already costing people lives and limbs which is tragic and unforgivable.” 

More Top Climate News

Following dozens of interviews with federal employees across seven agencies, The Washington Post reports that the Trump administration is halting enforcement of a range of laws and regulations that apply to businesses. This includes pipeline safety rules, water conservation standards for household appliances, anti-discrimination laws and more, the analysis found. Critics say that the administration is breaking the law with this relaxed enforcement strategy. 

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has reversed course on a stop-work order for the Empire Wind project off New York’s Long Island, and will now allow construction to resume on the large offshore wind development, Brad Plumer and Benjamin Oreskes report for The New York Times. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she had pushed back against the original block, and that “countless conversations” with the White House and Equinor, the project operator, led to the eventual green light. Experts say this is an unusual move for Trump, an outspoken critic against wind power.

In other New York news: Officials announced last week that 75 percent of the Big Apple’s municipal vehicle fleet is either hybrid, electric or operating on renewable biofuel, Rosemary Misdary reports for Gothamist. This transition includes many emergency service vehicles such as paramedic cruisers, ambulances and even electric police robot dogs, which the force says can help in incidents that involve hazardous materials. 

A new study found that climate change threatens more than 3,500 animal species. The scientists evaluated potential threats to more than 70,800 species across 35 classes—from tiny centipedes to colorful coral. Mass mortality events to animal communities during climate stressors like heat waves, wildfires and droughts are of particular concern, according to Oregon State University’s William Ripple, the study’s lead author. 
“The cascading effects of more and more mass mortality events will likely affect carbon cycle feedbacks and nutrient cycling,” Ripple said in a statement. “Those effects also likely will have an impact on species interactions such as predation, competition, pollination and parasitism, which are vital for ecosystem function.”