An 8.2 percent across-the-board cut in spending, from the so-called sequester, will trim already financially-depleted programs critical for maintaining and improving the NWS’ weather capabilities.

“It’s not going to be pretty,” said outgoing National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (according to Climate Central). “The sequester has the potential to wreak havoc with so many different things...”

The cuts loom large following a two-year onslaught of extreme weather, including Superstorm Sandy and continuing historic drought conditions in the Heartland. In 2011 and 2012, the U.S. experienced the most and second most number of billion dollar weather disasters on record.

“Sequestration substantially increases the risk that the United States will not be a weather-ready nation,” said Kevin Kelly, a lobbyist at Van Scoyoc Associates, who advocates for the weather enterprise. “Communities that experience a heightened risk of severe weather – which affects large portions of the nation in the spring and summer – face the chance of greater danger because the Weather Service will not be operating at 100 percent.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/post/sequester-threatens-nations-weather-forecasting/2013/02/26/284f6f66-7d29-11e2-9a75-dab0201670da_blog.html