WA senator presses Trump for modernized weather strategy during CNN appearance

Washington U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell sent a letter to President Donald Trump outlining a five-point plan that could improve the country’s approach towards weather readiness, utilizing data collection and up-to-date technology to inform and prepare civilians for upcoming natural disasters.

Cantwell, a ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, which oversees the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Weather Service (NWS), urged the Trump administration to modernize the nation’s weather systems on CNN.

Sen. Cantwell interview on CNN

In early May, NOAA announced that the billion-dollar weather and climate disasters database will be retired as part of a directive from the White House reflecting its ongoing effort to end climate-related programs and services.

Cantwell spoke on CNN to address the need for improved weather forecasting technology that can lengthen the time civilians have to prepare and respond to natural disasters, and limit the number of lives lost and dollars spent during these weather events in the U.S.

“I come from a very disaster-ridden state. We know what it costs us. Let’s get the best weather radar and technology system, do the analytics, and give people fair warning to get the heck out of the way,” Cantwell said. “We know that these storms are costing us billions of dollars and costing us lives.”

Cantwell noted the massive flooding in Kerrville, Texas, and how the modernized weather technology services she is requesting could have had a big impact on residents’ reaction time to the flooding, possibly notifying people days in advance.

“In Kerrville, if we had this kind of technology today, we would have been able to forecast the potential event of this weather pattern because of warm temperatures in the Gulf and process that information into a more searing alert in people’s minds, hours and maybe days ahead of time,” Cantwell said. “Americans should have the best weather system. Why not? Every hurricane is costing us billions of dollars, so why not prevent this?”

Cantwell’s letter to Trump

Cantwell summarized her weather-focused requests for Trump into five segments, which included modernizing weather data collection, analytics, research, modern alert systems, and advanced bipartisan legislation.

“Communities across the United States are experiencing more frequent, intense, and costly flash floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, atmospheric rivers, landslides, heatwaves, and wildfires,” Cantwell wrote. “The lessons from Kerrville, Palisades, Asheville, Lahaina, and too many other natural disasters are that providing Americans with more timely and accurate weather information can avoid billions in property losses and save lives.”

The first of the five points in Cantwell’s plan spoke to improved weather data collection tools, like radar, hurricane hunters, weather satellites, and ocean buoys that would provide revamped data collections by land, space, air, and sea.

“We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create the world’s best weather forecasting system that would provide Americans with much more detailed and customized alerts days instead of minutes ahead of a looming extreme weather event,” Cantwell wrote.

Cantwell claimed that improving the Doppler radar network could enable meteorologists to deliver more accurate forecasting and increase the amount of time between a weather warning announcement and its arrival.

Hurricane Hunters’ data collections have also improved forecast accuracy by at least 10 to 15% according to studies by the NOAA. Cantwell asked to rebuild the Hurricane Hunter aircraft fleet by replacing the current WP-3D, which has been in service since the 1970s, and introduce four new C-130s.

Weather satellites are also included in Cantwell’s revision, addressing the need to update to the Geostationary Extended Observations (GeoXO) satellite system, which can track lightning strikes that start wildfires, and smoke that can impact air quality and human health.

Other pieces of the five-point plan

Cantwell asked for world-leading analytics that can surpass the current European weather forecasting models’ capabilities. This would require more supercomputing and improvements in data analytics.

Additional funding for cutting-edge research was also mentioned, and Cantwell claimed that a NOAA laboratory in Oklahoma is testing a new tornado and extreme weather warning system that could provide an extra two hours to prepare.

The expansion of weather emergency communication channels to inform the public of a natural disaster was also included in the letter. Cantwell explained that emergency communication services such as AM and FM radio, websites, SMS, push notifications, TV, and social media all provide valuable alerts and warning information.

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