The Kansas City region has experienced a record number of severe weather warnings this year, with a combined 1,438 tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings, defined as systems with 60 mph wind or quarter size hail. It's the most since the country began tracking the storms.
But cuts to the National Weather Service by the Department of Government Efficiency are hitting forecasters’ ability to predict the dangerous weather.
“Some of the retired forecasters and watchers I've seen think there's a problem,” KCUR national correspondent Frank Morris told Up To Date on Tuesday.
In Ottawa, Kansas, on April 13, the NWS predicted an almost zero percent chance of tornadoes but, that evening, multiple tornadoes wreaked havoc in the area. Weather forecasters typically know hours before a storm strikes but, in this case, warnings went out only minutes before, according to Morris.
“The difference is that there wasn't … very much long-term forewarning,” Morris said.
His reporting shows DOGE cuts resulted in delays to the release of weather balloons at some stations. When released simultaneously around the world, weather balloons can provide graphic details of the atmosphere that are more in-depth than satellites and ground monitoring can provide.
Those delays trickle down to how people receive weather warnings, too.
“The warnings are astronomical this year,” said KCTV5 Chief Meteorologist Luke Dorris.
Outside siren systems are antiquated and a last ditch effort to warn people, he said, and, in some cases, people have received minimal warning time.
When it comes to smartphone warnings, some people will receive them even when they aren’t directly in the path of a severe storm. In those instances, Dorris said, their phones are geolocated to go off when in a designated warning area.
“Storms have some wiggle room in them as they're tracking along,” Dorris said. “You would be in there under the reasonable realm of places that it could go, so that could send off your phone.”
- Luke Dorris, KCTV5 chief meteorologist
- Frank Morris, national correspondent, KCUR
