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Tuesday, Jul. 22, 2025

Would the 2026 NOAA budget proposal close the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman?

Matthew Yim, Oklahoma Watch
yes

Proposed cuts in NOAA’s 2026 budget eliminate Oceanic and Atmospheric Research as a line office and terminate both the NSSL in Norman and the University of Oklahoma’s Cooperative Institute for Severe and High-Impact Weather Research. 

To support the Trump Administration’s priorities, all OAR Weather Laboratories and Cooperative Institutes, spanning 285 positions nationwide, are to be eliminated. 

Many programs previously supported, including the Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment and Warn on Forecast, would no longer receive funding, though a select few are being reduced and transferred to other offices.

WoF, which aims to increase the lead time of tornado, thunderstorm, and flash flood warnings, played a vital role in allowing Elk City residents a 30-minute lead during the 2017 tornado. The Norman weather forecast office had given a warning an hour prior to the Elk City warning based on WoF forecasts.

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