National Weather Center
Oklahoma is no stranger to unpredictable weather. Anytime your phone buzzes or rings with weather alerts, that comes from the National Weather Service. Although we are not officially designated as the weather capital, Oklahoma is home to the National Weather Center on the campus of the University of Oklahoma. As Oklahomans, we understand the importance of being weather aware. While many assume storm season is limited to the spring, the reality is that “tornado season” in Oklahoma starts on January 1st and ends on December 31st. Tornadoes have been recorded almost every month of the year since 1950. Given this constant unpredictability, our safety relies on timely alerts and the people who work to keep us as safe as possible.
Home of the National Weather Center
The National Weather Center in Norman is a unique collaborative building that is split between the University of Oklahoma and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The very concept of the National Weather Center was to bring these groups together under one roof to keep Oklahomans as safe as possible. This building houses over 100 meteorologists. The Storm Prediction Center is responsible for severe weather watches and outlooks, and the National Severe Storms Lab is its biggest tenant. The experts who make up these departments are responsible for forecasts, warnings, and advisories across 56 counties, working relentlessly to protect life and property. They rely on the raw data collected every five minutes from 120 measurement sites across every single county in the state.
Data coming from the national weather center plays a role in your everyday life. Living in Oklahoma, we know things do not always go the way they are supposed to. The weather has a mind of its own and dictates the kind of day that is possible for you at any given moment. Information collected by the National Weather Center (“NWC”) is vital to keeping people aware of whether they need to cancel an event or even cancel school in the winter. The NWC helps people like you make informed decisions and feel reasonably confident in those decisions.
Funding Cuts—Real-World Consequences
The work of the NWC and NOAA gives people the necessary time to prepare. All Oklahomans know that this window of opportunity is absolutely critical. Imagine you are an elected leader deciding to cut the kind of funding that saves lives. Any decent human being with real common sense would not allow this to happen, right? Well, this administration does not think so. Our leaders, like Tom Cole, voted to pass legislation that slashes this funding. The proposed 2026 budget plans to cut funding across the National Weather Service, which includes NOAA. This cut will impact weather forecasts that we rely on, from everyday people to farmers, airlines, and first responders. Experts warn that cutting this funding could make the difference between having enough time to act and suffering irreversible damage.
The tragic flash flood in Kerrville, Texas, serves as a grim example. The community members, including the mayor, state that they either did not receive adequate warning or received alerts too late. The former NOAA chief noted that staff cuts could be a contributing factor to the inability of emergency managers to coordinate timely alerts. When asked about these massive cuts to the NWC, experts are clear about the consequences: “If these cuts are made, it is not a matter of if there will be deaths, there will be deaths.”
I am no meteorologist, but I predict the most catastrophic proposal in the budget for 2026 is the plan to allocate ZERO dollars for research. While the justification for these funding cuts is to streamline operations, I believe, and many experts believe, that research should not be on the chopping block. Research collected is the very foundation of weather safety, of being weather aware. The ability to forecast more accurately has improved because of research. For instance, in 1980, experts could forecast a hurricane’s landfall within 400 miles. Today, thanks to research, they can forecast a hurricane within 60 miles, 72 hours in advance.5 What does this mean for us? Eliminating research means abandoning crucial programs that work to optimize timing and improve accurate lead times for tornado warnings. We as taxpayers deserve to have this life-saving data analyzed by experts to keep us as safe as possible. The services provided by the NWC cost you and me five dollars per year, with research totaling only about $1.50 per person.5 This small investment of our tax dollars provides a full return on investment to the economy and our safety. Without research, forecasts will inevitably become worse, and accuracy will decline, putting public safety at risk.
Conclusion
When making the distinction between a warning and a watch, I always understood that if we are under a watch, then danger is possible, and if a warning is issued, then something bad can happen if you do not act soon. My friends, we are past the watch stage. From the beginning, there were so many “watch signs” to see this coming, but we did not make use of the time. We have been distracted because we have been divided far too long. What we do next will determine whether we will suffer from irreversible consequences. The good news is that we still have time to prepare and fight for a safer America.
While these funding cuts are at the federal level, they impact our everyday lives. If we do not act now, the consequences of not acting will be far worse and will take longer to rebuild. It may feel like it is too late, but change is not easy; it does not happen overnight, just like this campaign. Grassroots movements start from the ground up; every conversation, every voter interaction, and every dollar raised in this campaign can help build the momentum needed to impact the future of our state and the country. There is still time to fight for a safer Oklahoma and elect leaders who will fight for a better America.
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NWS & NOAA, Monthly/Annual Statistics for Tornadoes in Oklahoma (1950-Present), Norman, OK, https://www.weather.gov/oun/tornadodata-ok-monthlyannualMark Fox & James Hocker, Ep. 32: A Look Inside the National Weather Center, in On West Gray: A City of Norman Podcast. https://www.podbean.com/ep/pb-38wnz-18639c2 The Scientific Impact of Cuts to NOAA & the National Weather Service (PBS NewsHour, Feb. 28, 2025), https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-scientific-impact-of-trumps-cuts-to-noaa-and-the-national-weather-serviceWhy Ex-NOAA Chief Thinks DOGE Cuts May Have Hurt Flood Response (CNN July 8, 2025), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82PE48SwYBENOAA Cuts Would Impact Forecast Accuracy, Meteorologists Say (Fox 9 July 2, 2025), https://www.fox9.com/video/1668257 