It's A Good Time To Revisit What Project 2025 Would Mean For Hurricane Forecasts

Trump infamously took a Sharpie to a federal hurricane projection. Project 2025 would wield an ax.

Millions of Americans along the Gulf Coast and throughout the U.S. Southeast are turning to the National Hurricane Center and the National Weather Service for accurate information about Hurricane Helene ahead of its expected landfall late Thursday — just as they have with tropical storms going back decades.

But if pro-Donald Trump conservatives have their way, these lifesaving forecasts could come to a screeching halt next year.

Project 2025 ― the sweeping policy blueprint that GOP operatives, including dozens of former Trump administration officials, compiled to guide a second Trump term ― calls for a future Republican administration to “break up” the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA is the parent agency of the 154-year-old National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center.

“The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories,” reads the 920-page manifesto.

Experts warn that doing so would be a deadly mistake. The National Hurricane Center is the lead federal agency for forecasting and tracking tropical weather, which Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, said is “critical to coordinating evacuations and emergency response.”