As severe weather ramps up, climate data falls into the abyss

Earth saw its strongest storm of 2025 roaming off Australia on Wednesday, while giant chunks of ice fell on Pakistan. In the United States, the battle against springtime severe weather is escalating as the science deniers of the Trump administration spread their wrath.

Weather Watch

April storms return. The next volley of severe weather and flooding in the central U.S. gets underway Thursday. Severe weather is a daily occurrence through the weekend, with a pattern that continues to support episodes thereafter. There’s a Level 3 of 4 flood risk Saturday, partly in a region just flooded early April.

Earth’s strongest. Errol became the first Category 5 equivalent storm of the year off the northwest coast of Australia on Wednesday. It peaked at 160 mph sustained and 919 millibars central pressure. Errol has weakened to a Category 3 since — it will strike a mainly rural area as tropical storm this weekend.

Ice from the sky. What has been called a 'freak' hailstorm killed several in Pakistan, including in and around Islamabad. Some intense video has emerged.

Lightning links

Gallup: Record high call global warming a serious threat.

Toddler survives cold night alone in Arizona wilderness after being found by ranch dog.

Trump’s war on science targets climate data

The Midwest Regional Climate Center is down for the count as of Thursday morning, due to lack of funding. So is the Southeast Regional Climate Center. They are among the first of numerous similar (and supremely excellent) climate tools disappearing from our lives, for no reason other than some influential people not liking what the numbers show.

I’ve been processing my thoughts on this subject, but it’s become a bit overwhelming to decide where to focus. In that sense, a crew known for its haphazard implementation of just about everything is doing a pretty good job with its attack on knowledge.

The first closings were announced last week, as discussed here at the time. Other regional centers and the extremely valuable xmACIS climate tool are sure to follow unless something major changes over the next two months.

A day after discussing it here, Science was first to point to a budget document later shared by the San Francisco Chronicle wherein the White House proposed ending NOAA’s climate research and dismissing hundreds of scientists working on the matter.  The overall cut to NOAA’s budget is $1.7 billion of its $6-plus billion going in.

Further, as CNN’s Ella Nilsen wrote, “[t]he documents describe the administration’s budget proposal for 2026, but indicate the administration expects the agency to enact the changes immediately.”

See today, with the climate centers going dark as example.

While this data will be hard to kill off entirely, these moves will make it substantially more difficult to access and analyze it. Numerous places that rely on these sources will have to scramble to find new avenues, re-write code or decide not to bother.

There is a growing list of valuable databases slated for decommissioning.

Like other avenues — emergency management for one — the individual states generally don’t have the resources or the connective ability to replace what is being lost. It is true that state climatologist offices are an arbiter of much data, but it is also the case that abilities and resources of these offices vary greatly. A number of states barely have more than a figurehead in charge.

This is of course a microcosm of what is happening across the federal government more broadly as Trump and his cronies rip apart the seams of critical fields. Like Steve Bannon’s favorite thing — flooding the zone with shit — the full assault across a wide spectrum is helping ensure there are not enough resources or focus to fight back on all fronts.

The data here is nonpartisan and only helps Americans. It comes at relatively small cost with a high return on value.

This should remain on the list of things to contact your representatives about. Keep bugging them and making noise — it is hard to ignore a leaky faucet. The Capitol switchboard is 202.224.3121. Contact state offices if difficult to get through to D.C.

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Weekday morning newsletter by a journalist/forecaster. Connecting weather and climate change dots while occasionally stirring the pot.

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