Feds Shelve Plan For Chatham Weather Station

CHATHAM – In news that town officials find quite deflating, it appears that the federal government has now shelved plans to establish a weather balloon launching site at the Chatham Airport.

The development comes after several years of planning and negotiation between the town and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

 Airport Commission Chair Huntley Harrison said last week that the project is on indefinite hold.

 “As you know NOAA was affected by the DOGE layoffs and funding cutbacks,” he said. “When I last talked with my contact for the project at NOAA, he said they could not commit to this project at this time due to the uncertainty of funds for [federal fiscal year 2026].” Harrison said he would be in touch with his federal contact after Oct. 1 to see if funds would be available and the project could proceed.

 “My take on this is that it will be a long shot to resurrect this project,” Harrison said. “We were very close to moving forward, [but it] became a victim of the circumstances evolving in Washington.”

The development is part of a broader assault on ocean and atmospheric science by the Trump administration, which has been tasked with cutting about 10 percent of its workforce, or more than 1,000 jobs, with another 1,000 jobs on the line if additional cost-cutting measures are implemented. Nationally, NOAA employs about 13,000 people in a variety of disciplines, from weather and climate forecasting to commercial fisheries science.

About one year ago, the town announced it was finalizing a 20-year lease agreement with NOAA for airport land off Wilfred Road. The lease called for the National Weather Service to fund the design, permitting, site work and construction of two buildings on the site: a small office and a larger hangar where weather balloons would be prepared for launch. The site was to take the place of the former upper air station on Morris Island, which was decommissioned on April 1, 2021 when it became clear it would eventually be claimed by erosion. The station buildings were demolished to prevent them from tumbling down the eroding cliff.

For years, contractors working for the weather service launched weather balloons twice daily from Chatham, generating data on temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction at various levels of the atmosphere. Since the decommissioning, weather forecasters have relied on data from the three closest stations in New York City, Albany and Gray, Maine.

But in recent weeks, staffing cuts at NOAA have forced some upper air stations to curtail their observations. In the past week, the Albany station has only launched once daily instead of twice.

 “Upper air data is important to our operation,” said Francis Tarasiewicz, a forecaster with the National Weather Service forecast office in Norton. “We feed that information into computer models, which generate accurate forecasts as a result.” Knowing the conditions in the upper reaches of the atmosphere is also particularly important during dangerous weather.

 “I know there were extra balloon launches before the severe weather outbreak in the South,” Tarasiewicz said.

According to published reports, the Norton forecast office — which services southern New England — has lost two employees to federal staffing cutbacks. Staff there referred all questions about staffing to the National Weather Service’s public affairs office. A notice on that office’s website warns that requests for information may be delayed because of federal layoffs in media relations staff.

In addition to the loss of weather data that’s important to local mariners and aviators, the tabling of the Chatham upper air observatory project is disappointing because of the amount of local effort that went into building the partnership with NOAA, Harrison said.

 “It is a shame. Maybe Washington will come to its senses and reinstate the NOAA people. As my contact said to me, they need the data and our location is excellent,” he said. “We plan to hold space for them for a possible resurrection of the project in the future.”

The land in question, near the northeast end of the runway, was used for years as a gear storage area by local fishermen. In 2021, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered the gear to be removed, saying it attracts wildlife that could pose a safety risk to aircraft. The town moved the gear to a new storage site near the wastewater treatment plant, leaving a clear site for the weather station.

 “The [airport ] commission will continue to keep the area mowed and cleaned up, and there will be a fence installed around the area this spring, paid for by MassDOT Aeronautics funded through an Airport Safety and Maintenance Project (ASMP) grant,” Harrison said. “There are no current plans to use the area for anything else.”