Lack of weather data due to Trump’s budget cuts impacted forecast for deadly Alaska storm

The forecast for the powerful and deadly storm that battered small communities in western Alaska over the weekend was likely made worse by a lack of weather data triggered by the Trump administration’s cuts.

There is a gaping hole in weather balloon coverage in western Alaska — a critical shortage bedeviling US forecasts and the National Weather Service since layoffs hit the agency as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s push to shrink the federal government back in February.

Weather balloons, which are typically launched twice a day, provide crucial information on wind speed and direction, air temperature, humidity and other measurements. Balloon data is fed directly into the sophisticated computer models used to predict the weather.

However, there were few, if any, balloons to take measurements of what the weather was doing as the remains of Typhoon Halong approached Alaska late last week.