The end of the year is a time to reflect on the past and plan for the future. Weather, as always, made headlines on multiple fronts in 2025 including deadly Texas Hill Country floods, a rare EF-5 tornado in North Dakota, Hurricane Melissa, cuts to the National Weather Service, and the emergence of artificial intelligence. From my lens as a professor, scientist and former American Meteorological Society President, here are six weather stories to watch for in 2026.
Status Of National Weather Service Staffing And NOAA Research Labs
In 2025, a “storm” of budget cuts, early retirements, and federal government downsizing led to dramatic cuts in National Weather Service personnel. Unfortunately weather continued to “weather,” and the nation experienced extreme weather events like California wildfires, Texas Hill Country flooding, and strong tornadic storms. Understaffing of NWS offices and degradation of infrastructure like weather radars raised questions about the adequacy of warnings to the public, businesses, and security stakeholders. The Washington Post recently reported that many weather services offices are still understaffed as the winter season approaches.
In the wake of weather disasters earlier in the year, the NWS is now hiring again, according to CNN’s Andrew Freedman. I will be watching to see if staffing levels stabilize. Candidly, many offices were understaffed before drastic cuts this year, so a net increase is likely needed to get the federal weather ecosystem where it needs to be.
On a related note, early NOAA budget projections called for closure of several research labs. Such labs are critical for providing research and new technology like advanced radars or AI-based models. They serve as the research and development arm of the operational NWS and work closely with the broader research community. Earlier this year, for example, the National Severe Storms Laboratory, partnered with university researchers on the NSF-supported In Situ Collaborative Experiment for the Collection of Hail in the Plains (ICECHIP), which was the largest hail-specific field program in almost fifty years.
R&D labs are vital for long-term preservation of life, protection of property, and competitiveness with our global peers. Thankfully, weather research and prediction have always enjoyed bipartisan support, so let’s watch this one closely.
Will La Niña Continue?
We are currently experiencing La Niña conditions. According to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, “La Niña continued over the past month, as indicated by the strengthening of below-average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean.” These conditions affect the jet stream and weather patterns across the United States and around the world. Here in the U.S. South, for example, warmer and drier conditions are typically associated with La Niña. I am already seeing a potential warm up here in the South as we move into the Christmas season and new year.
However, it is important to remember that even within average expected conditions, different types of weather can happen during a given day or week. NOAA went on to warn that weak La Niña conditions are expected to continue through the rest of the winter.
The Fate Of Atmospheric Sciences Programs
Recently, the University of Nebraska proposed eliminating four academic programs. The Earth and atmospheric sciences program was among them. According to The Daily Nebraskan, cuts were made to, “Address a $27.5 million budget deficit, despite a plea from dozens of faculty, students and community members to save the programs.” This is one of the storied programs in the field and was the only program in the state with a degree program to train the next generation of meteorologists, climate scientists, and other types of atmospheric scientists.
Nebraska, as a state, is critically-dependent upon agriculture. Weather expertise, seasonal predictability, and longer-term climate change assessment are vital to the sustainability of agricultural productivity. In fact, the National Drought Monitor that provides information and guidance on U.S. drought conditions is done through a partnership between the National Drought Mitigation Center and the University. While I am not suggesting that is going away, the expertise of this program was likely a foundational resource for the partnership.
One Nebraska colleague told me current students studying meteorology, climatology, and geology are searching for new universities outside of the state to continue their studies. When he told me that, I immediately thought about my time at Florida State University and how disruptive such events would have been for me.
U.S. economic, agriculture, water, and health security depends on weather prediction, climate assessments, drought analysis, critical minerals, and water budgets. On Facebook a colleague in another state wrote, “We are living in an era of record-breaking billion-dollar weather disasters and profound environmental challenges. To dismantle a department whose mission is to understand, predict, and help society navigate these threats is reckless.”
Earlier in the year, it was reported that University of Indiana – Bloomington was eliminating or suspending several programs, including atmospheric sciences. Just this month, the University of Oklahoma announced it was eliminating its Bachelor’s degree in Geography. While Oklahoma still has a robust meteorology department, many universities house atmospheric-related sciences within Geography Departments.
As a leader within the discipline and director of a thriving atmospheric sciences program with almost 80 majors, I am seeing a resurgence in federal hiring within the meteorological field, a rapidly-emerging private sector demand for atmospheric scientists, and a broader landscape of convergence in publicly-critical areas like health, energy, water, agriculture, national security, and more. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects growth in the demand for meteorologists from 2024 to 2034. It expects roughly 700 openings per year for meteorologists and atmospheric scientists as an aging workforce retires and new opportunities emerge.
Will The 2026 Atlantic Hurricane Season Be Active Again?
Many of you reading this may be saying, “What does he mean, again?” There is a misperception that the 2025 Atlantic season was not active because no hurricane made landfall in the U.S. and only one named storm did so. Landfall does not define “hurricane season activity.” We had 13 named storms this year. Hurricane Melissa was possibly the strongest storm on record in the Atlantic basin and produced a 252-miles per hour wind gust just above the surface, according to NOAA. Over the past five years, we have seen active and devastating hurricane seasons, so I will be watching the 2026 seasons closely.
The Continued Emergence of AI
Speaking of the hurricane season, AI-based weather models made significant inroads this season. If you followed hurricane discussions this season, National Hurricane Center meteorologists consistently referenced the Google DeepMind model in their analyses. In July, NOAA and Google announced a partnership to evaluate the performance of this new generation of models. In a NOAA press release, NHC director Michael Brennan said, “This collaboration between NOAA and Google will ensure that NOAA’s National Hurricane Center is able to quickly evaluate new tropical cyclone forecasting technology as it arises.”
Though no official analysis has been released, early assessments suggest that the Google Model did very well. In fact, it may have outperformed the official NHC forecasts at times, according to Ars Technica. In his blog, University of Miami hurricane expert Brian McNoldy wrote, “AI-based models are relatively new, but are taking the weather forecasting industry by storm (pun intended)…. There are some concerns and unknowns with them, but so far the pros outweigh the cons. For a new model to be leading the pack for both track and intensity is unprecedented.”
Beyond hurricane season, the Europeans have operationalized an AI weather model. The U.S. is also on the verge of an AI model revolution. This spring an AI-based Warn-On-Forecast system alerted emergency managers nearly two hours in advance of the likelihood of a tornado in Missouri. A National Severe Storms Laboratory press release said, “The two-hour lead time given by the NWS Paducah Weather Forecast Office was invaluable. After sharing the advanced messaging with county emergency personnel and social media pages, the Carter County emergency manager reported the number of people checked into a designated shelter in Van Buren rose from four to 125 well before the tornado arrived.” NSSL, which developed the system, is one of the NOAA research laboratories that I mentioned earlier. This case is a perfect example of return on public investment.
Clear Messaging As New Weather Communication Formats Emerge
You would be surprised at how many people don’t realize weather apps are using data from NWS observations, models, and communication streams. There’s no “weather app fairy.” In 2022 I wrote about four common mistakes people make using weather apps, and those points are still quite valid. Just recently, I saw a person comment on an NWS Facebook page questioning their forecast because “her apps said something different.”
People consume weather information in a variety of ways beyond television. There are YouTube Channels, Twitch, Tik Tok, podcasts, streams and other formats. We also continue to struggle with “Like or Share Seekers” posting questionable winter weather or hurricane forecasts based on “1-model run” or information too far out to be definitive. Organizations like the American Meteorological Society and the National Weather Association have tried to counter this new reality with digital certifications, which signal that a person has solid credentials. While I support the efforts, I will let you in on a secret. My college-aged kids and their peers could care less about “certifications.” If they see a forecast on one of their platforms or hear about a storm from friends, it often carries weight with them. Luckily my kids can text me for verification, but everyone doesn’t have a “meteorologist” dad.
It will be interesting to watch how weather messaging evolves. Why is this one of the things that I am watching? Our weather models, radars, satellites, and weather experts are quite good today. However, weather risk delivery and consumption are still significant barriers in our goal to save lives and property. It’s the very reason sociological, communication, psychological, and social-behavioral sciences are so embedded within the weather enterprise today. For example, flood-mapping assessments clearly identified regions in Texas Hill Country as danger zones, but people still camped there. Appropriate weather warnings were also available, yet there was a breakdown in message dissemination.
I am not dreaming of a White Christmas. I dream of a day when we consistently utilize the 5P’s for weather risk preparation and communication: Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance. In 2026, let’s continue to move towards anticipation, preparation, and resilience rather than reacting after the fact.
