Report: D/FW NWS Short-Staffed

Staffing shortages at the local Dallas-Fort Worth National Weather Service office left forecasters scrambling to cover Saturday’s tornado outbreak and could slow the process of completing damage surveys, reports KXAS-TV.

NWS officials insist all weather warnings were issued in a timely way. But the union that represents forecasters says forecasters covered the storms with the help of meteorologists who volunteered to come in from home and managers pulling extra duty.

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The Dallas Morning News reports the Dallas-Fort Worth National Weather Service office currently has three vacant front-line forecaster positions. The meteorologist who serves as the union representative for the DFW area office says Saturday’s storms highlight the urgent need to fill those jobs.

“This office needs to be fully staffed. We shouldn’t have to be spending time trying to find people to cover shifts and do surveys after high impact weather,” said local National Weather Service Employees Organization representative Jason Dunn.

“We serve more than 8 million people. Densely populated with lots of weather,” Dunn said.