How much is a weather forecast worth? (Update)

0:01NPR.

0:11This is The Indicator from Planet Money. I'm Waylon Wong. And I'm Adrian Ma. This spring, tornadoes and floods have battered homes and businesses across the Midwest and the Southeast. As a result, at least 42 people have died. The federal agency responsible for issuing life-saving warnings and forecasts for severe weather is also getting battered. The Trump administration is making deep cuts to staffing at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, also known as NOAA. These job cuts at NOAA include climate researchers and fish biologists. They also include hurricane hunters, people who fly into storms to collect data.

0:51The moves have put the meteorological community on edge. Some are worried the cuts are jeopardizing reliable forecasts or are even a precursor to privatizing the agency. And while there are a lot of private tech companies doing weather forecasts, most of these businesses still rely on the government for their underlying data. So today, we're going to re-air our show from last November about tensions in the meteorology community. These tensions are over how public weather data flows into private companies and at what cost. And whether that flow of information will continue.

1:29This message comes from NPR sponsor, Capella University. Sometimes it takes a different approach to pursue your goals. Capella is an online university accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. That means you can earn your degree from wherever you are and be confident your education is relevant, recognized, and respected. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more about earning a relevant degree at capella.edu. This message comes from BetterHelp. As a dad, BetterHelp president Fernando Madera relates to needing flexibility when it comes to scheduling therapy.

2:06I have kids under 18, so time is very limited. That's why at BetterHelp, our therapists try to have sessions sometimes at night, depending on the therapist or during the weekend. So I think that's what we need to tell the parents. You're not alone. We can help you out. If a flexible schedule would help you, visit BetterHelp.com slash NPR for 10 % off your first month of online therapy. The federal government has officially been in the weather business since 1870. 1970. That's when Congress created a National Weather Bureau to collect data and make forecasts. Today, that office is known as the National Weather Service.

2:43It's part of an agency called the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Commonly referred to as NOAA. And the National Weather Service is the main source of weather data, forecasts, and warnings in the U.S. Its job is to protect life and property. And that means making weather data universally available to everyone as a public service. So when you see the local weather forecast on the news, for example, there's a good chance that the underlying data comes from the government. And then there are lots of businesses that are taking that data, slicing and dicing it, and selling it onward.

3:17Keith Sider is a professor of climate science at the College of the Holy Cross, and he's also a senior policy advisor at the American Meteorological Society. 20 years ago, there were the few government agencies that worked in weather, and there were a fairly well-known list of private sector companies. Any of us could sit down with a piece of paper and write down the 20 main companies. And now the private sector is vast and it goes everything from very, very tiny one - or two-person companies up to companies like Microsoft and Google. Private companies like these take data from NOAA and the National Weather Service.

3:51They put their own spin on it, say, by applying proprietary computer models. they can then sell specialized data and hyper-local forecasts to customers that are highly dependent on the weather. Yeah, for example, think of a utility company that needs to monitor ice buildup on power lines during a winter storm. Or an airline that wants to reroute a flight to avoid turbulence. Or even a concert promoter that gets an alert to evacuate a stadium during a storm. Keith says there's been a couple of sources of friction between the government and these private weather companies in the last few decades.

4:24One source of friction has to do with the overall ethos of the National Weather Service. Keith says if the agency could provide better data to the public for free, it would do just that. Right now, on your phone, you can pull up and look at a radar image in real time. In the 1980s or 1990s, we didn't have the cell phones to do that. But as websites became available, the National Weather Service said, well, we can actually make this data available to everybody. But Keith says this stance didn't sit well with some private companies, you know, the ones making a living from selling specialized forecasts.

5:03If customers could get sophisticated data from the government for free, maybe they wouldn't want to pay for that kind of information anymore. So that is one source of tension in the industry. Another one, Keith says, has to do with the flow of weather data. Remember when we said the government is a foundational data source? That's because historically, NOAA and NASA paid for the big weather satellites that collect that information. Well, these days, Keith says private companies are launching their own satellites and selling the data. And NOAA and the National Weather Service have become customers.

5:37In some cases, Keith says, the agencies are buying data from these private companies because it's cheaper than operating those satellites themselves. But then you've got a little bit of attention because the government typically provides all of the data it has for free. And if they're buying data from a commercial satellite, they can't just turn around and give it all for free or else that commercial company only has one customer, which is NOAA. The government's new role as both a supplier and a customer of weather data has blurred the lines between public agencies and private sector businesses.

6:09But there are examples of the two sides working together. Mary Glackin has been an official at NOAA and an executive in IBM's weather business. She says the aviation industry could be a model. If we know there's a weather event happening at an airport, what you'd really like to be doing is advising the airline what flights to cancel, which ones to delay. When I was at IBM, we would have forecasters that would be on calls with federal forecasters a couple times a day before an official forecast came out. So that works fairly well. Over the years, conservative policymakers have argued for limiting the government's role in weather forecasting.

6:52Now the Trump administration appears interested in downsizing some of NOAA's functions. Its early moves mirror some of the goals outlined in Project 2025. This is the conservative policy blueprint from the Heritage Foundation think tank. That document calls for dismantling NOAA. But moving to a more privatized or market-based model for weather forecasts, It raises questions about whether potentially life-saving information would only be available to people with resources. Yeah, like some municipalities supplement government forecasts with information from private companies that they pay for. But then it's like, what about towns that can't afford to do that?

7:29This is kind of a wild thing to think about when it comes to potentially life-saving information, right? Like one town has different information than another. Exactly. And in economics, we talk about this thing called a public good. A public good is something that can be used simultaneously by multiple people without diminishing, and it's something that's available to everyone. Renato Molina is a professor of environmental and resource economics at the University of Miami. He says an accurate weather forecast definitely meets the criteria for a public good. Because, I mean, if we follow the definition, everyone benefits, right?

8:04You consuming a good forecast for a hurricane, for example, does not diminish my ability to consume the same good forecast. And we all benefit. We're all better off. And this benefit isn't just abstract for Renato. He and a colleague crunched the numbers around this federal program that's aimed at improving hurricane forecasts. They estimate that it led to$7 billion in avoided damages and costs since 2009. That's because when weather forecasts are more accurate, local governments can request federal money for protective measures in advance of a hurricane. They can also issue timely evacuation mandates.

8:42The hurricane forecast has generated immense value for society. If you get an evacuation mandate, then you're going to take this seriously, meaning you're going to protect your house, right? You're going to pull down the shatters or, you know, like, bore your house. If you might be exposed to some flooding, that might reduce the overall damages that you're exposed to if that happens. Staffing cuts to the National Weather Service may already be threatening timely forecasts for Americans. Nearly half of the agency's field offices have 20 percent vacancy rates. Earlier this month, as deadly tornadoes blew across the Midwest and South, the National Weather Service office in Louisville, Kentucky said it did not have enough people to confirm twisters.

9:23And in fact, the office said they had to rely on citizen photos to survey damage in the area.

9:34This episode was produced by Julia Ritchie with engineering by Kweisi Lee. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and edited by Kate Kinkanan. It was originally edited by Patty Hirsch. The Indicator is a production of NPR.

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