MISSOURI – Beginning Thursday, half of the websites for NOAA’s Regional Climate Centers were unavailable for use in what the websites noted as a “lapse in federal funding from the Department of Commerce through NOAA.”
There are six Regional Climate Centers covering different states: High Plains, Midwestern, Northeast, Southeast, Southern, and Western.
On Thursday, four of the six websites were non-functioning, which included the High Plains, Midwestern, Southeast, and Southern pages. The message from the High Plains Regional Climate Center read:
“Funding for the Regional Climate Center program lapsed on April 17, 2025 due to a suspension of federal funding from NOAA through the Department of Commerce. It is unknown if or when funding will resume. All data and services offered under the HPRCC contract, including this website, are unavailable.
If there are particular products and services you rely upon, please fill out this form so we can identify products to prioritize for continuance. Unfortunately, some products will be discontinued indefinitely because of their association with the Regional Climate Center program.”
Last week, Reuters reported on the Trump administration proposing slashing this area of NOAA by cutting its federal funding around $1.67 billion, or 25% total. According to Science, this proposal would “eliminate all funding for climate, weather, and ocean laboratories and cooperative institutes.”
This development comes at a time when over 600 probationary employees were fired from their jobs in February.
Regional Climate Centers are responsible for gathering and distributing detailed information regarding climate conditions—from daily almanacs, precipitation, drought information, webinars, industry-specific data, such as apple frost risk, and more.
Many those in the weather and climate community took the news to social media, expressing frustrations with the websites going dark, citing inefficiencies and lost valuable data for agricultural purposes.
The remaining two websites that are still functioning—Western and Northeast RCC—have an alert message warning that they may become unavailable June 17, according to their websites.