Remarks from News Conference hosted by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz

NOAA Research on the chopping block - my prepared statement text

Just a real quick post to express my gratitude to Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Representative James Clyburn, Representative Lois Frankel, and Representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, for allowing me to participate in a news conference this morning to discuss the administration's plans to eliminate the NOAA Research Labs and Cooperative Institutes. It was a great discussion of why NOAA Research is so important and what happens if it’s shut down. As an NHC alum, I had the opportunity to provide a forecaster’s perspective. My former colleagues Dr. Robert Atlas and Dr. Frank Marks were also there speaking as former Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory leaders.

The text of my four minutes of remarks today is given below. There’s a lot of good stuff in the linked video of the Zoom news conference throughout, and especially in the Q&A session that followed the prepared remarks.

Good morning. My name is James Franklin. I spent 17 years at the National Hurricane Center, first as a forecaster and then as chief of operations. I’d like to give a forecaster’s perspective on how NHC’s products and services have been improved by the NOAA Labs and Cooperative Institutes, and some consequences of the proposed budget cuts.

NOAA Research benefits virtually all aspects of NHC’s operations, from data gathering to analysis to modeling to forecasting to communicating risk. Here are five major NOAA Research contributions:

First, when forecasters prepare Tropical Weather Outlooks, they’ll consult satellite-based wind and moisture analyses prepared by a NOAA Institute. Other satellite tools help NHC estimate the strength and size of hurricanes outside of the range of reconnaissance aircraft.

Second, when storms threaten land NHC relies on instruments released from the NOAA G-IV jet that measure the currents that steer a storm from place to place. These data improve hurricane track forecasts by 10-20%. P-3 missions to collect Doppler radar data from the hurricane core improve some model forecasts by 30%. NOAA researchers staff these flights.

Third, when estimating storm strength and size from aircraft data, forecasters use an algorithm developed at a NOAA lab, and an instrument first tested on the P-3s but now installed throughout the hurricane hunter fleet.

Fourth, when it’s time to make the forecast, NHC’s Hurricane Specialists will consult models either partly or completely developed by NOAA Research. You may have heard of some of them: SHIPS, LGEM, and HAFS. Or SHIPS-RI, the first tool to successfully forecast rapid intensification.

Fifth and last, some may remember Max Mayfield warning us not to focus on the skinny black line. Well now we don’t have to - because the Time of Arrival graphics help quantify and communicate risk to emergency managers and the general public.

To repeat, all of these data and tools are available to forecasters because of NOAA Research. And there are others I don’t have time to mention here.

So what happens at NHC if NOAA Research is shut down?

• Right away, the Doppler radar missions would stop, along with the forecast improvement they bring.

• Almost certainly by next year, some of the most important intensity models would fall out of service, degrading NHC’s intensity forecasts.

• Websites that provide forecasters with crucial satellite analyses would break. Intensity estimates for storms beyond aircraft range would be degraded. Formation forecasts for disturbances would likely become less accurate.

• Longer term, I think track forecasts would continue to get better, but at a slower pace. Intensity forecasts, however, would likely stagnate or even regress.

In the last 25 years, track errors have been cut in half and intensity errors have been cut by a third, much of that due to NOAA research. If we decide to give up our best chances for new observations, improved models, and better products and services, my fear is that we’ll look back 25 years from now and say - this is when that progress stopped.