Four of the nation’s six regional climate centers were thrust into a state of confusion last week when the Trump administration let their funding run out. After several days of crucial data going dark, weather monitoring hub officials tell NOTUS that they have been told they can continue operations.
The Commerce Department now intends to give the regional climate centers another year of funding, leaders of two of the affected centers said. The centers have been given a temporary spending authorization so that they can quickly return their systems online before those new funding contracts are signed, according to John Nielsen-Gammon, the director of the Southern Regional Climate Center.
As of Monday afternoon, all four of the centers’ data and tools had been restored to the internet.
“Thank you to everyone who expressed their strong support for the Regional Climate Center program. Our funding has been restored by NOAA and the Department of Commerce,” read the banner atop the Midwest Regional Climate Center website Monday afternoon.
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One center leader specifically credited news stories for leading the administration to restore funding.
“I think that the compelling media stories of our value to US commerce/society absolutely made the difference,” Charles Konrad, the director of the Southeast Regional Climate Center, said in an email to NOTUS.
The Commerce Department did not respond to requests for comment.
The regional climate centers provide weather data and analysis tools relied upon by nearly every industry across the United States. Farmers use the centers’ work to decide when to plant crops, officials use the data to monitor droughts and determine aid for ranchers, public schools use the online tools to establish safety protocols for student athletes, and so on.
State climatologists, who are responsible for sharing information about the state of the weather and climate with policymakers and state-level agencies, told NOTUS that they would be thrust into chaos if the regional climate centers remained offline.
“These regional climate centers, they are the backbone of what we develop at the state level,” Pennsylvania state climatologist Kyle Imhoff said last week. “It really spans all sectors, pretty much anything you can think of. They develop things for us that we couldn’t develop ourselves, that are crucial for our operations. It will be a major disruption if this continues for an extended period of time.”
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Anna Kramer is a reporter at NOTUS.
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