Like many in the field of meteorology, Mark Fox's career path was shaped by an atmospheric phenomenon. At age nine, the sight of an Oklahoma twister fascinated him, setting off a future of study to better understand how movement overhead affects life on the ground.
Fox grew up in Stillwater and now works as the meteorologist-in-charge for the National Weather Service in Norman. In mid-March, he oversaw operations as historic fires blazed on, causing evacuations for thousands. His hometown was among the most affected.
" If this were a tornado event, this would be like El Reno back in 2013 or May 3, 1999," Fox said of the two Oklahoma weather events that resulted in dozens of deaths and millions of dollars of damage.
Yet the office environment was calm, set to the low hum of meteorologists working together and interpreting displays of weather data. Fox was in a group message with emergency managers and workers at the State Emergency Operations Center to collaborate on alerts and evacuations.
The Norman office is inside the University of Oklahoma's National Weather Center, a research hub with the National Severe Storm Laboratory (NSSL), the Cooperative Institute for Severe and High-Impact Weather Research and Operations (CIWRO), the School of Meteorology and others.
The center is an ecosystem of science and technology overlapping with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), housed within the Department of Commerce. The federal agency is the country's premier organization for weather forecasting, vast data collection, ocean and climate research and more.
It's also among the targets of a broad directive to lean out the federal workforce under the Trump administration.
In February, hundreds of NOAA employees – including some in Oklahoma – were laid off. The same workers were hired back with a federal court order, and then let go once more. A recent passback document from the White House outlined a budget proposal that would shrink the agency's overall budget and eliminate its research arm.
The Trump administration supports "a leaner NOAA that focuses on core operational needs, eliminates unnecessary layers of bureaucracy, terminates nonessential grant programs, and ends activities that do not warrant a federal role," the document states.
If approved by Congress, the plan would terminate nearly all active research in the National Weather Center by ending the cooperative institute, the Southern Climate Impacts Planning Program and more. The NSSL could either be absorbed by the weather service or slashed, according to a source familiar with the information.
Scientists warn the layoffs, proposed budget decrease and the stress of looming cuts could impact forecasting and safety. Alan Gerard, a Norman-based meteorologist, spent decades with NOAA and retired early through the federal directive. He's among thousands to reportedly take such an option.
" I feel like a tremendous amount has been achieved by NOAA in my 35-year career, and I'm seeing a lot of it go backwards in a very short period of time," he said. "That's obviously not the way you want to end your career."
Gaps in data collection, job stress weigh on forecasters
America's forecasts are developed using immense amounts of data, computer models and the expertise of meteorologists. Freely available information collected by NOAA serves as the backbone of the calculations, scientists say.
Private forecasts are also developed using the web of public data gathered by the federal agency. Taft Price, a former broadcast meteorologist in Tulsa and current forecaster for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said he's used the information throughout his career.
"We use that same data, and it's all the way across the board," Price said. "Whether it's on TV, whether it's a private company, or whether it's here at the Corps, we all use that same type of information to get those forecasts out there."
But some data has gone uncollected in recent weeks, including by weather balloons that capture information on temperature, wind, humidity and pressure in the atmosphere. Launches were reduced or suspended at several locations, including in Colorado, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Those gaps can impact forecasts in all corners of the country.
"If you have a butterfly flap its wings in China, eventually that will impact the weather elsewhere, even in Oklahoma, as those perturbations in China magnify and travel outward," Gary McManus, Oklahoma's state climatologist, said. "It's the same thing with weather forecasts."
Without widespread data collection, forecasts could suffer, he said.
"The protection of life and property are impacted by the loss of this data because you are impacting the accuracy of these forecast models," McManus said.
The stress of working during violent tornadoes and floods, common during Oklahoma's spring months, is compounded by the looming threat of more cuts for weather service forecasters and researchers. More reductions are expected in May.
Some plan to take retirement options while others await news of layoffs.
"My priority was to try to minimize the stress on the staff because it's already stressful issuing tornado warnings, going out and doing damage assessments and interacting with people whose lives have been destroyed, essentially," Gerard, who most recently worked at the NSSL, said.
"That's all very stressful and can impact job performance and mental health — and trying to do that in an environment where you have significant staffing shortages — all of that just adds tremendous stress to an already stressful situation," he added.
NOAA did not respond to requests for comment on this story.
Overhaul of NOAA impacts the science community
Recent accounts from scientists describe the changes to NOAA in the way some might view Oklahoma's spring weather: Rapid and unpredictable.
For Noah Brauer, being in public service is important to his mission as a researcher and meteorologist. He graduated with a Ph.D. from OU's School of Meteorology in 2022 and works for the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.
The organization, which is a partnership between the University of Colorado Boulder and NOAA, could be among those terminated under the budget proposal. The same fate could apply to CIWRO in Oklahoma.
"For early career people, it's kind of like the rug's being pulled out from underneath us," he said. "Like, where do we go from here? This is a time where we really want to be open to exploring different opportunities and different areas within the field, and different science questions."
Brauer said he values the work he does and the collaboration with other entities, even private weather companies.
"Because that's ultimately what we want to do, is serve people and protect, and just help benefit society," he said.
Gerard, who now writes a meteorology newsletter, didn't plan to retire from the federal workforce until the end of this year or in 2026. An email from the Department of Commerce offered Gerard the option to leave in March and pursue other work.
The morale was low by the time he left, he said, and he worried the proposed budget cuts and staff shortages would deter scientists from NOAA and the community in Norman.
"Certainly, for my entire career, a place like NSSL, the Storm Prediction Center, working in the weather service, [the] NOAA weather community as a scientist was what somebody that wanted to be a meteorologist doing severe weather, that was their goal," he said. "That was kind of seen as the pinnacle of being a severe weather meteorologist."
Public support for NOAA in Norman
As the future of research inside the National Weather Center hangs in the balance, protests against the layoffs and proposed cuts have erupted nationwide and in Oklahoma.
In February, a crowd gathered outside the state capitol with signs in support of NOAA and the National Weather Service. On Earth Day, residents protested the cuts outside U.S. Rep. Tom Cole's (R-Okla.) office.
In Oklahoma City, Loretta McKibben, former computer support contractor for NSSL, said she feels distraught by the changes.
"Science, technology, engineering, mathematics: those are the foundation of modern society," she said during the protest. "Without it, we don't have enough to eat. We don't have clean water, we don't have health care. It's fundamental. We don't have weather warnings."
"And by attacking the foundation of the country, I think that's about as un-American as you can get," she said.
Inside the National Weather Center, colorful sticky notes with hopeful messages dot the wall outside NOAA's offices. Signs outside the building call for a fully-staffed office.
Constructed in 2006, the building represents the nerve center of weather science in Oklahoma. Fred Carr, former director and professor emeritus of the OU School of Meteorology, said the layoffs and proposed cuts are detrimental to the campus building and employees.
"It's very disheartening," he said. "I'd be the first to admit that a lot of federal agencies, especially their headquarters buildings, could be made leaner, but what we see is that frontline people are being affected."
Probationary employees, comprised of new hires and newly promoted workers, were among those first cut by the federal directive. Early-career workers have new skills to advance forecasting and research within the National Weather Center, Carr said.
"It's hard to keep track of what's going to be left whenever it's over," he said.
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