Fact Check: Did Donald Trump Defund NOAA, the Service That Helps With Weather Predictions and Alerts?

After Donald Trump was sworn in as President of the United States for his second term in office, he immediately got to work. One of his first orders of business was to create the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which was run by Elon Musk and a few of his handpicked associates, where they worked to eliminate what they deemed excess spending by the federal government.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the agency tasked with doing everything from monitoring the weather — the agency oversees the National Weather Service (NWS) — to addressing changes within the world's oceans, was one of the ones who saw funding cuts and employees terminated, prompting some to wonder if Trump defunded NOAA.

You can find out about Trump's impact on NOAA below.

In February 2025, NOAA saw major changes within the agency, which included the termination of around 880 employees, according to Wikipedia. That figure accounted for 7.3 percent of NOAA's total staff, which was estimated to be somewhere 12,000 people strong prior to the firings.

Of those employees, an estimated 25 percent were said to be part of the Environmental Modeling Center. However, the true number of NOAA employees terminated under Trump's administration remains up in the air.

That's because several legal battles have been waged over the terminations, which resulted in some employees being re-hired, some being fired (again), and others being dismissed as part of a "probationary" period.

According to Wikipedia, 1,029 NOAA employees were approved for buyouts or resignations as part of the February DOGE cuts as of April 2025.

However, the cuts didn't stop with employees. Trump's administration is looking to make a 27 percent cut to NOAA's budget for the 2026 fiscal year, which would begin in October 2025. According to a NOAA statement, the cut would eliminate the agency's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, which would include work on tornadoes, flash flooding, hurricanes, wildfires, and more.

This would directly impact research into severe weather, as well as the platforms meteorologists from around the country use to track weather data.

With a budget in the billions, you may be wondering what the agency does. According to the website, NOAA has a "mission to better understand our natural world and help protect its precious resources extends beyond national borders to monitor global weather and climate, and work with partners around the world."

As part of that mission, the agency works to do everything from determining daily weather forecasts to managing marine commerce.

One of the more immediate tasks the NOAA is responsible for is tracking weather patterns and issuing emergency alerts when and where they are needed. This is a lifesaving activity that is carried out by the agency, and it's one that many other agencies and news networks around the country rely on due to NOAA's access to both cutting edge technology and the platform it has to store and share its findings.

That's why so much outrage followed Trump's cuts to NOAA, especially when they came immediately ahead of what was predicted to be a more active than average hurricane season. While it may take several months (or even years) to determine the true effects that these cuts will have, some areas say the country has already suffered as a result, pointing to the 2025 flooding of a river in Texas that took the lives of more than 100 people, including young campers.

"What has happened to the girls at Camp Mystic is exactly what one of the country's best meteorologists, John Morales, warned would happen," assistant director at Christopher Newport University's Wason Center for Public Policy Rachel Bitecofer was quoted as saying by Fox News. "Trump's cuts to the NOAA & NWS have critically impacted storm prediction nationwide."