In the wake of the devastating Texas floods, some Democrats have raised concerns about the “consequences” of workforce reductions within the federal government during the Trump administration, including meteorologists. Senator Chris Murphy stated, “Accurate weather forecasting helps avoid fatal disasters.”
The implication is that these staffing cuts may have impaired the National Weather Service’s (NWS) ability to effectively predict the floods and issue timely warnings.
However, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt asserted on Monday, “These offices [of the NWS] were well staffed… so any claims to the contrary are completely false.”
BBC Verify has examined the impact of staffing reductions under President Trump. While there has been a decrease in the NWS workforce, experts consulted by BBC Verify suggest that the staffing levels available during the Texas floods appear to have been adequate.
The Trump administration has proposed a 25% cut to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) current annual budget of $6.1bn (£4.4bn). NOAA is the agency that oversees the NWS.
These cuts are scheduled to take effect in the 2026 financial year, beginning in October of this year. Therefore, these specific cuts would not have been a factor in the recent Texas floods.
Nonetheless, staffing levels at the NWS have already been reduced separately as a result of the Trump administration’s efficiency initiatives since January.
The Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), previously led by Elon Musk, offered voluntary redundancies (“buyouts”) and early retirement packages to federal government employees. It also terminated the contracts of most probationary employees.
According to Tom Fahy, legislative director of the National Weather Service Employees Organisation union, approximately 200 NWS employees accepted voluntary redundancy, and 300 opted for early retirement. He also stated that an additional 100 employees were ultimately terminated.
In total, the NWS lost 600 of its approximately 4,200 staff, according to Mr. Fahy, which has led to staffing shortages in several offices nationwide.
In April, the Associated Press reported that data compiled by NWS employees indicated that half of its offices had a vacancy rate of 20% – double the rate from a decade earlier.
Despite these reductions, climate experts have told BBC Verify that the NWS forecasts and flood warnings issued in Texas last week were as adequate as could be expected.
“The forecasts and warnings all played out in a normal manner. The challenge with this event was that it is very difficult to forecast this type of extreme, localised rainfall,” said Avantika Gori, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University in Texas.
Andy Hazelton, a climate scientist who modeled hurricane paths for NOAA until being laid off in February, added, “I don’t think the staffing issues contributed directly to this event. They got the watches and the warnings out.”
However, some experts suggest that staffing cuts may have hindered the ability of local NWS offices in Texas to effectively coordinate with local emergency services.
“There is a real question as to whether the communication of weather information occurred in a way that was sub-optimal,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“The impact might have been partially averted if some of the people at the weather service responsible for making those communications were still employed – which they were not in some of these local offices,” he added.
The San Angelo and San Antonio offices, which cover the areas affected by the flooding, reportedly had some existing vacancies.
For example, the San Antonio office’s website lists several positions as being vacant, including two meteorologists.
The NWS union legislative director told BBC Verify that the San Angelo office was missing a senior hydrologist, a scientist who specializes in flooding events.
The San Antonio office also lacked a “warning coordinating meteorologist,” who coordinates communications between local forecasting offices and emergency management services in communities, according to Mr. Fahy.
However, he noted that both offices had temporarily increased their staffing in anticipation of a dangerous weather event, which is typical in these circumstances.
“The NWS weather forecast offices in Austin/San Antonio and San Angelo, Texas had additional forecasters on duty during the catastrophic flooding event,” NWS spokeswoman Erica Grow Cei said in a statement to BBC Verify. “All forecasts and warnings were issued in a timely manner,” she added.
NWS meteorologist Jason Runyen, who covers the San Antonio area, also stated that the office typically has two forecasters on duty during clear weather, but they had “up to five on staff” during the flooding.
When asked on Sunday if government cuts had left key vacancies unfilled at the NWS, President Trump told reporters: “No, they didn’t.”
In a video shared thousands of times on social media, US meteorologist John Morales said: “There has been a 20% reduction in weather balloon releases, launches… What we’re starting to see is that the quality of the forecasts is becoming degraded.”
Some social media users have pointed to Mr. Morales’ words as evidence that budget cuts have limited forecasters’ ability to anticipate extreme weather events like the floods in Kerr County, Texas.
Weather balloons are an important tool used by meteorologists to collect weather data – from temperatures to humidity, pressure, and wind speed – from the upper atmosphere.
In the US, NWS stations typically launch them twice a day.
In a series of public statements released since February, the NWS confirmed that it had either suspended or reduced weather balloon launches in at least 11 locations across the country, citing a lack of staffing at local weather forecast offices.
However, there is no evidence to suggest that any of those changes directly affected weather balloon launches in the areas impacted by the floods in Texas.
Publicly available data shows that, in the lead-up to the floods, weather balloon launches were carried out as planned at Del Rio, the launch station nearest to the flood epicenter, collecting data that informed weather forecasts which experts say were as adequate as they could be.
Additional research by Kumar Malhotra
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