National Weather Service staff work through partial government shut down

With the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) hit during the partial government shutdown, the National Weather Service is seeing some of those impacts reaching the Monterey office.

The work doesn’t end, however, as staff with NWS say they’re committed to a mission statement which promotes protecting the life and property of wherever NWS staff are based.

“Shutdown or not, we’re working here 24/7 in order to bring life-saving information to the public,” says Brian Garcia with the National Weather Service.

Many NWS/NOAA employees are furloughed or working unpaid as the partial shutdown enters beyond the 30th day.

This also means some of the tech forecasters are accustomed to using or some of the data and research activities are also either limited or muted completely.

Despite this, the work continues. NWS staff spent the early part of the partial shut down surveying damage caused by a water spout in Santa Cruz.

The question was whether it was to be designated a tornado or not. Something which they feel deserves communicating to the public.

“We’ll look and listen to our partners and see what happened during storms and waht our partners and media have,” says Garcia. “We’ll also look at what our media partners have said and what they found.”

For now, NWS and NOAA staff await whatever resolution may come which would end the partial shut down.