Science deniers putting historical climate and weather data at risk

The United States weather pattern continues to be dominated by warmth west and cooler, wetter conditions east. In the United Kingdom, where it usually rains plenty, any precipitation would be appreciated given heightened wildfire threats.

Weather Watch

Eastern U.S. storm. A soaking is coming to much of the East Coast. About 1 to 2 inches are likely from the Carolinas to New England with the potential for shovelable snow in higher elevations as far south as Connecticut and southern New York.

UK fire risk. Several large fires are burning in Ireland, Scotland and Britain. It’s been an unusually dry stretch in the region and locally extreme fire weather is expected through the weekend.

Record heat in the Southwest. Phoenix just missed 100 on Wednesday but should get there Thursday through Saturday. Each could be a record, among many in the region.

They’re deleting the logs… they’re cheating the stats

On a dreary day in 2017, President Trump was sworn in as the 45th president with rain occasionally falling. Upon retelling of that moment, Trump lied and said the sun came out as soon as he started to speak. In his second term, after years of proper evil scheming, the guy is closer than ever to forcing the weather books to bend to his will.

Before anything further: our weather data apparatus is massive, and it does profound good for the country and the world. The United States is the certain leader in most aspects.

In addition to larger branches within NOAA, regional climate centers are the backbone of quality controlled historical weather data.

There are six regional climate centers: High Plains, Midwestern, Northeast, Southeast, Southern and Western. Just a few years back, the centers celebrated their 40th anniversary, after weathering prior attacks in the first Trump administration.

This week meteorologist Matt Lanza shared a notice that was posted to the Midwest Regional Climate Center.

It states “support for this website may be unavailable starting April 17, 2025. Please contact us at [email protected] if this disruption could affect you.”

I looked around at the other centers and found a similar note on the Northeast Regional Climate Center page. This time with a June 17, 2025 date and the address [email protected].

Although the notice is not found — at least easily — on the rest of the group, it is presumable it will eventually appear on them as well.

(I am in the process of inquiring further, but given this attack was somewhat expected, it’s worth spreading the word as is.)

This is data we’ve paid for as taxpayers so any removal of it is not on the up and up. It is used by government, industry and numerous other consumers daily. If we can spend 1 trillion on defense, we can spend a tiny fraction of that on this critical arena of national security.

Alas, it’s also a “two birds, one stone” type of deal for the science haters in the administration.

Most of the centers are housed in universities, with one in a research institute. In recent days, Trump’s team has moved against state climate laws, cancelled funding key to the National Climate Assessment and killed allotments to related programs at Princeton.

I’d hazard a guess that the numbers are inconvenient to their policy.

An obvious next question will be whether the backbone of data these centers make sense of will also come under fire. The Applied Climate Information System is a huge, invaluable store of weather and climate data across the United States and for some partners outside the country.

The rest of the world only wishes they had it so good with such important information.

To be frank, a large portion of what I do in analyzing data originates from these sources. The thought of losing them is at least slightly terrifying. And while I’ll write about climate change in context of severe weather events more broadly, the majority of uses these websites enable are purely of value to communication and understanding key features of local climate or weather in the here and now.

Just because Trumpians turned climate into a dirty word doesn’t mean it actually is. Red states have climatologists like blue states do. Mastering the conditions of an area is of utmost importance to business and myriad other interests.

This data is also unquestionably nonpartisan but rather historical fact. While it is true that the long-term weather stations involved often tell a tale of a changing climate over time, that is not reason to throw away knowledge.

One could make a misguided but perhaps plausible argument that the government should not be in the climate change business, especially if that government is made up of capricious and wanton actors the American electorate frequently elevates. It is much more difficult to argue the government should be deleting or otherwise manipulating information it doesn’t agree with.

Aren’t these the same people who want private sector to find solutions? That will not happen with bad or disappeared data. America’s success is intricately tied to its values as a representative democracy — deleting the data goes counter to that.

Please contact your representatives to voice support for safeguarding climate data. Tell lawmakers that this is our story, and we will not let it be taken.

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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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