Forecast, interrupted

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "Forecast, Interrupted"

Podcast: Click Here (Recorded Future News)
Host: Dena Temple-Raston
Air Date: July 10, 2026

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Overview

This episode explores the rapidly evolving landscape of weather forecasting, where artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to revolutionize predictions—saving lives and mitigating economic fallout from climate events. But a crisis looms not in the technology or science, but in the very infrastructure that feeds weather models the critical data they need. The episode investigates the recent political decisions threatening America’s weather data backbone and the consequences for public safety, focusing on the experiences of veteran meteorologist John Morales and insights from AI researcher Amy McGovern.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Promise of AI in Weather Forecasting

• AI is transforming weather prediction, enabling faster and potentially more accurate forecasts (00:21).
  • "Artificial intelligence is quietly transforming the forecasts we all rely on ... spotting storms sooner, issuing warnings faster." — Narrator/Host, (00:21)
• AI models can process massive numbers of data points in seconds, compared to hours for traditional models.
  • "A typical numerical weather prediction model can give you a 24 hour forecast, but it takes about an hour. The AI model can give it to you in a second or two." — Amy McGovern, University of Oklahoma (11:34)
• Speed matters: Faster predictions can mean faster warnings and saved lives.

2. The Data Dilemma—NOAA’s Role

• AI relies on comprehensive data. Decades of observations collected by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) underpin all serious forecasting.
• The US weather infrastructure is a global beacon, based on international cooperation.
  • "In meteorology, there are no political boundaries ... everybody is releasing their own set of weather balloons." — John Morales (10:06)
• NOAA data improvements mean a "four day forecast today is as reliable as a one day forecast was 30 years ago." — Narrator/Host (10:51)

3. The Endangered Backbone: Budget Cuts and Their Impact

• Current Crisis: In 2026, the federal government implemented significant cutbacks to NOAA, impacting data collection, staffing, and infrastructure (18:20).
  • "The proposed cut to NOAA’s budget is 27% in 2026 ... a quarter of NOAA’s Hurricane Hunter flight directors have been grounded ... weather balloons reduced by nearly 20%." — Narrator/Host (18:30)
• Grassroots and legislative pushback: As gaps appear, citizen scientists and some lawmakers try to compensate—but cannot fill the void left by the gutting of federal capabilities.
• The episode critiques the notion that private companies can fully substitute for NOAA.
  • "Which company is going to put in several hundred million dollars per radar to cover the United States in radar data?" — Amy McGovern (19:20)
  • "It’s the definition of shooting yourself in the foot and then wondering why you can’t run the race." — Narrator/Host (19:30)

4. Lived Experience: John Morales’ Journey and Alarm

• Morales reflects on his career progression from a stat-obsessed child in Puerto Rico to an award-winning meteorologist in Florida.
• A universally trusted local figure, Morales kept a calm, non-alarmist persona—until now.
  • "I've become a person that's not just a weatherman. I am almost a trusted family member that folks go to for advice when it comes to preparing for hurricanes." — John Morales (20:32)
  • "My audiences have always known me as just the facts, non-alarmist meteorologist." (20:55)
  • But in June 2026, faced with the data crisis, he breaks tradition and sounds the alarm on-air.
    • "I am here to tell you that I am not sure I can do that. This year." — John Morales (22:00)
    • "This is a multi generational impact on science in this country ... call your representatives and make sure these cuts are stopped." (22:32)

5. The Political Origin: Project 2025

• Cuts trace back to "Project 2025," a blueprint for a second Trump administration that targets NOAA for ideological reasons.
  • "Project 2025 explicitly says that NOAA is to be well dismantled because the excuse was that NOAA is a climate Alarmist Agency." — John Morales (17:28)

6. The Human Toll and Public Risk

• Personal Appeal: Morales publicly admits he cannot guarantee forecast accuracy with existing gaps.
• Viral moment resonates nationwide: people depend on weather predictions for safety and everyday life.
  • "Tonight and just about every other night of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, we are going to be tracking hurricanes like it’s 1999. We are on a time machine to the previous century. Except this isn’t a party." — John Morales (23:27)

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Noteworthy Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Data is Essential:
  • "But if I cut off your arm, how are you going to do things that require two hands?" — Amy McGovern, on federal data cuts' impact on AI forecasting (02:06)
• Balloon Launches as Global Cooperation:
  • "There’s something kind of romantic about it. Isn’t it, that all these people come out at the same time all over the world and release these Mini Cooper-sized balloons out into the atmosphere." — Dena Temple-Raston (10:17)
• Forecasting with Less:
  • "We are going to be tracking hurricane like it’s 1999 ... Except this isn’t a party." — John Morales (23:27)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction of Theme: The promise and peril of AI-enabled weather forecasting (00:17–01:23)
• Personal History: John Morales and Weather Data’s Humanity (05:43–07:39)
• Weather Balloons & Global Cooperation (08:31–10:28)
• NOAA’s Central Role, AI’s Leap (10:51–12:57)
• The Data Crisis and Political Backdrop (Project 2025) (16:53–17:43)
• NOAA Cuts in Practice—Impact on Forecasting (18:19–20:32)
• John Morales’ Public Warning—A Viral Appeal (21:19–23:27)
• Conclusion: Risks of Weather Forecasting Without Robust Data (23:52–end)

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Tone & Takeaways

The episode juxtaposes technical progress with political and infrastructural regression. It sounds a clear warning: without NOAA’s data and expertise, AI’s promise in forecasting is empty. The personal tone, especially from Morales—a calm voice forced to alarm—is both sobering and relatable.

Key message: All the world’s AI cannot compensate for the loss of foundational data. What’s at stake is not just the accuracy of tomorrow’s forecast, but public safety, trust, and scientific progress for generations.

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Transcript

[Narrator/Host]

From recorded future news and prx, this is click here.

[Dena Temple-Rastan]

Something remarkable is happening in weather.

[Narrator/Host]

Artificial intelligence is quietly transforming the forecasts. We all rely on spotting storms sooner, issuing warnings faster.

[Dena Temple-Rastan]

It promises to save lives, to blunt economic fallout, maybe even help us adapt to climate change. But all that progress hit a speed bump recently. A big one. The problem isn't the science or the machines. The real storm is elsewhere.

[Narrator/Host]

And it broke in the last place you'd expect a local weather report.

[John Morales]

As you've grown accustomed to my presentations over my 34 years in South Florida

[Narrator/Host]

newscasts, meteorologist John Morales went on the air this past June with less of a weather report and more of a warning that something fundamental about the skies we all share is changing.

[John Morales]

What we're starting to see is that the quality of the forecasts is becoming degraded.

[Dena Temple-Rastan]

And this isn't an abstract problem. Right now, an intense heat wave is moving across the globe. Earlier this month, temperatures in parts of Britain and Europe climbed past 112 degrees. That record breaking heat then made its way to the US Predicting where the next flood, storm or heat wave will strike takes complex systems built on years of information, thousands of data points, and now artificial intelligence is promising to make those forecasts faster and more accurate. There's just one problem. AI is all about data. And earlier this year the federal government started cutting back the system that collects it for weather forecasting.

[Amy McGovern]

We're on the verge of making so many amazing technologies available. But if I cut off your arm, how are you going to do things that require two hands?

[Dena Temple-Rastan]

From recorded Future News and prx, this is Click Here, a podcast about the people making and breaking our digital world. I'm Dena Temple Rastan. Today we return to a story about the race to build the future of weather forecasting. Just as we start dismantling the system it depends on. We'll be right back. Support for Click Here comes from Decagon. Decagon helps companies create personalized concierge style customer experiences with AI agents across chat, email, voice and SMS. They're available 24, 7, feel natural to talk to, and can resolve customer requests on their own so businesses can keep up with requests without losing their personal touch. Workflows can be updated using natural language so teams can make changes themselves without long engineering cycles. That means less time spent managing workflows, more time focused on customers and ROI in weeks. Once they're live, agents can pull up to date information, take action on requests, and understand the context behind any conversation. Also, Decagon gives your team full visibility into why agents make decisions and what's happening across every conversation, so it's easy to spot trends and improve the experience over time. Decagon helps power millions of conversations every day for brands you know and love, including Avis, Affirm, Fanatics, and Oura. Ready to transform your customer support? Go to decagonaiclickheare to get a personalized demo and see what Decagon can do for your team. Check decagon out at decagon AI Clickhere. That's decagon AI Clickhere. Support for Click Here comes from Nord Security. Here's the challenge it Teams need to see what's happening in browsers, but they can't slow anyone down or disrupt their workflow. Nord Layer Browser solves this. It gives it teams full visibility and control over browser activity while keeping everything familiar and fast. For employees, two products work together. Nord Layer provides the Secure Network foundation. Then Nord Layer Browser extends that into the workflow, managing web apps, sessions, and data.

[Narrator/Host]

The payoff?

[Dena Temple-Rastan]

Every browser session becomes visible, controlled and secure. Company data stays protected. Access to sensitive resources is managed. Accidental data leaks are prevented. And it works for all kinds of teams, remote workers, contractors, people using their own devices, all secured without the complex setup or device management. Go to nordlayer.com Browser clickhere and unlock your 10% discount on Nordlayer browser with coupon code clickhere10. That's nordlayer.com Browser Clickhere and enter coupon code clickhere10 at checkout. Long before John Morales started tracking hurricanes, he tracked baseball.

[John Morales]

I was a Santurce Crabbers fan, the Canrejeros de Santurce. This is the team where Roberto Clemente played and many other greats.

[Narrator/Host]

As a kid in Puerto Rico, he'd sprawl out on the floor, pencil in hand, copying the box scores from the evening paper line by line.

[Dena Temple-Rastan]

And when the last stat was tallied,

[Narrator/Host]

he'd flip the page from balls and strikes to storms.

[John Morales]

You know, in the 70s mainly, you know, before Internet, you would get these hurricane tracking charts that would either be inserts in the local newspaper or you could go to the hardware store and grab one of them.

[Dena Temple-Rastan]

Hurricanes are a fact of life in Puerto Rico. Every year the island is pummeled by major storms, so John started tracking those too. He'd sketch out the storm paths, building his own weather reports by hand. And without quite realizing it, the kid copying numbers out of the newspaper was teaching himself to see patterns, first in box scores, then in storms.

[John Morales]

I would take down all kinds of information. What the barometric pressure was, what the trends were, what direction was it moving? What was the expectation?

[Narrator/Host]

He took that obsession to Cornell, where he studied atmospheric sciences and even began entering weather forecasting contests.

[John Morales]

I won a couple of times, a couple of semesters. I actually came out victorious.

[Dena Temple-Rastan]

From Cornell, he made his way to

[Narrator/Host]

the National Weather Service and eventually to Florida.

[Dena Temple-Rastan]

Meteorologist John Morales is joining us now

[Reporter/News Anchor]

to break it down for us.

[Narrator/Host]

John, hi.

[John Morales]

Good afternoon to both of you. And indeed, the advisory is in. This is still a formidable hur now ranked as the second strongest.

[Narrator/Host]

So what do you think people understand

[Dena Temple-Rastan]

least about being a meteorologist?

[John Morales]

I think most people have a preconception that we're wrong half the time, and that's really pretty far from the truth. These days, we're right about 85% of the time and wrong 15% of the time. That's a pretty good batting average.

[Narrator/Host]

It took a lot to get to that kind of accuracy. The science of weather forecasting, it started, well, not that differently than what John

[Dena Temple-Rastan]

used to do in his living room.

[Narrator/Host]

All the math done by hand. Then there were these gradual advances. Computers, satellites, radars, even this delightfully retro thing that surprised me. Something that's critical to weather science, but sounds more like it belongs at a kid's birthday party.

[Dena Temple-Rastan]

Balloons.

[John Morales]

Well, it's not a party balloon. Okay? I would say it's the size of a very small compact, like a Mini Cooper or a Fiat 500. Right.

[Dena Temple-Rastan]

If you've never seen one of these

[Narrator/Host]

weather balloons launched, picture this. An overcast morning in the parking lot of a squat brick weather station. A technician in a crisp white Polo, National Weather Service emblem stitched over the pocket steps outside, cradling what looks like a bundle of limp latex. In a few minutes, it will swell to the size of the Mini Cooper John talked about.

[Dena Temple-Rastan]

After that, we launch the balloon.

[Narrator/Host]

It gets to about 100,000ft, takes 90 minutes to pop. As it ascends, it beams down all kinds of weather data. Temperature, humidity, wind speed.

[John Morales]

Three, two, one, go.

[Narrator/Host]

Every single day, scientists all over the world walk out into the elements to release these giant, gleaming white orbs into the sky.

[John Morales]

The two times the balloons are released are an hour before noon and an hour before midnight.

[Narrator/Host]

Simultaneous launches synchronized across hundreds of stations around the globe, performing not just an act of science, but also something that feels rare right now, an act of global unity.

[John Morales]

In meteorology, there are no political boundaries. So whether it's Russia or Saudi Arabia or South Africa, everybody is releasing their own set of weather balloons.

[Dena Temple-Rastan]

There's something kind of romantic about it. Isn't it that all these people come out at the same time all over the world and release these Mini Cooper sized balloons out into the atmosphere.

[John Morales]

The mere fact that there is this level of cooperation internationally, right. The fact that they know that this is going to lead to better results for everybody. Well, I mean, that's the type of collaboration that we need to tackle many other challenges that we have going on internationally right now.

[Narrator/Host]

All of this technology, the radar, the satellites, those balloons that all got supercharged in 1970, that's when the federal government established the national oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or noaa. NOAA became a hub for weather research and innovation not just in the United States, but around the world. And because of the data NOAA has gathered over the decades, a four day forecast today is as reliable as a one day forecast was 30 years ago. And now we're on the edge of another giant leap in forecasting. One driven not by new satellites or supercomputers, but by artificial intelligence.

[Amy McGovern]

A typical weather numerical weather prediction model can give you a 24 hour forecast, but it takes about an hour to give you that new forecast. The AI model can give it to you in a second or two.

[Narrator/Host]

This is Amy McGovern. She's a computer science and meteorology professor at the University of Oklahoma. She also leads the National Science Foundation's AI Institute. They focus on making AI weather systems reliable, which has become a big job because lots of companies are trying to build AI weather models these days. Even big tech has jumped in. Companies like Microsoft and Google are already predicting storm tracks four or five days before landfall, which is important because when it comes to weather, speed matters. And while the introduction of AI to all of this seemed very promising, Amy's quick to say it's not perfect. For example, AI is pretty good at spotting big storms, but not as good at hyperlocal forecasts. Also, AI doesn't understand the physics of weather or the calculus that governs stores.

[Amy McGovern]

Things like you can't negatively rain, negative rain.

[Narrator/Host]

It's hard to know how to plan for that kind of forecast, which should

[Amy McGovern]

be obvious like if it's either raining or it's not, it's not sucking rain out of the atmosphere. But an AI model doesn't know that. Right?

[Narrator/Host]

But actually the biggest problem is that AI learns from the past and the past doesn't look much like the present anymore.

[Amy McGovern]

How do you predict the extremes if the extreme has never happened before for anything, for statistics in general, how do you predict something that's completely out of your distribution?

[Narrator/Host]

Rising sea surface temperatures are turbocharging storms, turning modest disturbances almost overnight into category three, four, and even five hurricanes. And those once in a century floods. They're starting to feel a lot more routine tonight. The Big Apple is a big mess, and tens of millions of Americans are experiencing torrential rain and record flooding. Heavy downpours are expected to continue.

[Dena Temple-Rastan]

With climate change, the weather is getting tougher to predict, but John Morales says there's another problem, one that has nothing to do with weather getting harder to understand and everything to do with our ability to see it. Because just as AI is getting better at predicting weather, we're starting to take away some of the information it needs to do that.

[Narrator/Host]

John saw this coming and then it started happening.

[Dena Temple-Rastan]

That's where we're headed next. Stay with us. Support for Click Here comes from Servil. Every company says AI will make employees more productive, but most employees are still stuck waiting on it, waiting for app access and password resets. Waiting for someone to fix a laptop issue so they can get back to work. That operational drag adds up fast, and IT teams are overwhelmed trying to keep up. Servl was built to change that. You describe what you want in plain English and Servl builds it for you. No complicated workflow, no consultants, just faster support and fewer tickets slowing everybody down. The platform is designed to eliminate repetitive tickets so it can focus on strategic work instead of constant firefighting. And unlike traditional automation tools, Servol doesn't require consultants or long implementation cycles. Servol positions it as the AI powered operational backbone of the company, not just a support function. Learn more or start a free four week pilot at cerval.com clickhere that's S E R V A L.com clickhere servol.com

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[Reporter/News Anchor]

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[Dena Temple-Rastan]

Welcome back. John Morales first saw the warning signs a couple years ago. He'd been invited to a meeting about the future of weather forecasting. And in a way, it was an exciting time to be having that conversation. AI was getting better and faster, and forecasts were getting more accurate. But as John prepared for the meeting, he came across something that made all that progress suddenly seem a lot less certain.

[John Morales]

There was a summer community meeting coming up for the American Meteorological Society, and they had asked me to be a panelist on it. And part of what we were going to be discussing was potential threats to America's weather enterprise. And in preparation for this panel, I learned a lot about Project 2025.

[Narrator/Host]

Project 2025, the blueprint for the Trump administration's second term. As John read through it, he ran into this section that stopped him cold.

[John Morales]

Project 2025 explicitly says that NOAA is to be well dismantled because the excuse was that NOAA is a climate Alarmist Agency.

[Narrator/Host]

Project 2025 calls for the gutting of NOAA, the National Weather Service, the satellites, the research centers, the entire system that weather forecasting relies on.

[Dena Temple-Rastan]

As John sat through the conference, he listened as dozens of panels touted the

[Narrator/Host]

glories of AI, but said nothing about this looming threat to noaa. And he kept thinking to himself, all the promise of AI, none of it can be fulfilled without good data, data that NOAA provides. And then, just months after the conference, John's worst fears came true.

[Reporter/News Anchor]

All right, we're getting some breaking news

[Narrator/Host]

that we've been following over the last hour with a Trump administration official confirming that about 5% of the national oceanic

[Reporter/News Anchor]

and Atmospheric Administration are being let go.

[Narrator/Host]

The proposed cut to NOAA's budget is 27% in 2026, which will compromise the agency's weather stations and research centers and its aging satellites. A quarter of NOAA's Hurricane Hunter flight directors have been grounded already. Pilots who fly straight into the eye of a storm to measure its intensity, and those car sized weather balloons, their flights have been reduced by nearly 20%.

[John Morales]

I've seen some of the maps of where these gaps are. So, for example, you look at the, at the Northern Plains and the Intermountain west, and there's huge gaps there with no data whatsoever.

[Narrator/Host]

As with many of the Trump administration's cuts, they seem to think that private companies can do it better. Meteorology Professor Amy McGovern isn't convinced which

[Amy McGovern]

company is going to put in several hundred million dollars per radar to cover the United States in radar data.

[Narrator/Host]

All of that, all of that data

[Amy McGovern]

is all collected inside NOAA and all

[Narrator/Host]

of it is used. And here's the the handoff to private companies. It can't really happen without NOAA's infrastructure. All those tech companies building AI systems for weather, their models don't work without good data. It's the definition of shooting yourself in the foot and then wondering why you can't run the race. Some lawmakers are starting to push back, drafting legislation to try to restore some of NOAA's critical positions. And outside Washington, grassroots efforts are trying to fill the void. Public agencies are partnering with private companies. Even citizen scientists are chipping in where NOAA's resources have been cut. It's hopeful and inspiring to see people step up to save something critical. But it isn't nearly enough to replace what's been lost. And John Morales watched all this play out with growing frustration and then alarm. And this is not a feeling his audience knows him for.

[John Morales]

I've become a person that's not just a weatherman. I am almost a trusted family member that folks go to for advice when it comes to preparing for hurricanes.

[Narrator/Host]

He's earned their trust through a combination of accuracy and humanity, but most of all, his calm.

[John Morales]

My audiences have always known me as the just the facts, non alarmist meteorologist.

[Dena Temple-Rastan]

But as Noah started to crumble, so

[Narrator/Host]

did John's ability to give the people who trust him the forecast they can rely on. So just the facts. John decided to do the thing he almost never does. He sounded the alarm.

[John Morales]

So June 2nd was a Monday. It's the first weekday of hurricane season.

[Narrator/Host]

That night he began his forecast with a story from the past, an old

[Dena Temple-Rastan]

broadcast from 2019, when it seemed that

[Narrator/Host]

Hurricane Dorian was going to hit Florida, John predicted it would turn back out to sea.

[John Morales]

As you've grown accustomed to my presentations over my 34 years in South Florida newscasts confidently I went on TV and I told you it's going to turn. You don't need to worry. It is going to turn.

[Narrator/Host]

And it did. It turned. Then he said something you never want to hear your weatherman say.

[John Morales]

And I am here to tell you that I am not sure I can do that. This year.

[Narrator/Host]

He laid it all out. The budget cuts, the data gaps, the layoffs.

[John Morales]

Did you know that Central and South Florida National Weather Service offices are currently basically 20 to 40% understaffed from Tampa to Key west, including the Miami office, 20 to 40% understaffed.

[Narrator/Host]

And then looking straight into the camera.

[John Morales]

This is a multi generational impact on science in this country. I just want you to know that what you need to do is call your representatives and make sure that these cuts are stopped.

[Narrator/Host]

The broadcast went viral around the country, not just in Florida. He'd struck a nerve because to turn on your local news or check a weather app and trust what you see to know whether you're safe or need to evacuate, or even whether to take an umbrella or just take sunscreen. Everyone cares about that. In a lot of ways, weather is the most universal human experience. We've come a long way from sticking your finger in the air to gauge wind direction or feeling in your bones that a storm is on the way, that progress has saved buildings, cities, countless lives. But as John said recently in an

[Dena Temple-Rastan]

Instagram post, tonight and just about every

[John Morales]

other night of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, we are going to be tracking hurricane like it's 1999. We are on a time machine to the previous century. Except this isn't a party.

[Dena Temple-Rastan]

This is click here.

[Narrator/Host]

Click Here is a production of Recorded Future News and prx. Today's show was written and produced by Megan Dietre, Sean Powers, Erica Guida, Zach Hirsch, and Maya Fawaz. It was edited by Karen Duffin and Sarah Cavedo and Fact Checked by Darren Ancrum. Original music is by Ben Levingston, with additional music from Blue Dot Sessions. Our staff writer is Lucas Riley, our illustrator is Megan Gough, and our sound designers and engineers are Jake Cooke and Jesse Niswonger. Hi, I'm Dena Tumble Rastan, and thanks for listening.

[Reporter/News Anchor]

Support for this program comes from Recorded Future. In cybersecurity, the biggest risk isn't what can be seen, it's what gets missed. Recorded Future analyzes billions of signals to help organizations stay ahead of threats. Recorded Future Know what matters?

[Sponsor Representative]

Act first Looking for more of the cybersecurity and intelligence coverage you get on Click Here. Then check out our sister publication, the Record. From Recorded Future News. You'll get breaking cyber news from reporters in New York, Washington, London and Kyiv, among others. And you'll see for yourself why it attracts hundreds of thousands of page views every month. Just go to the Record Media.