Top weather agency memo warned staff not to contradict Trump on his Dorian forecast for Alabama – Washington Examiner

Hours after President Trump delivered an outdated forecast to Alabama over Labor Day weekend, warning the state could get hit hard by Hurricane Dorian, a memo circulated around the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration instructing employees not to contradict the president.

The directive, sent by a top NOAA official, told staff to “only stick with official National Hurricane Center forecasts if questions arise from some national level social media posts which hit the news this afternoon.”

The email, obtained by the Washington Post, also forbade sharing any opinions.

Over the past week, Trump has faced a storm of controversy as he repeatedly defended his tweet on Sept. 1, which said Alabama, as well as other southeast states, “will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated.” Within 20 minutes, the National Weather Service station in Birmingham tweeted “Alabama will NOT see any impacts” from Dorian because it was projected to remain too far east by that point in time.

NWS spokeswoman Susan Buchanan told the Washington Examiner last week the Birmingham office was only responding to “inquiries to assure the public that Alabama was not in the projected path.” The tweet has not been deleted.

Lashing out at the unfavorable media coverage that ensued, Trump accused the press of “fake news” while sharing old weather maps and tweets that show Alabama early on could have been in Dorian’s path.

The backlash intensified on Wednesday when Trump presented in the Oval Office a National Hurricane Center map of Dorian’s projected path from Aug. 29. It wasn’t long before people noticed that added to the graphic was a black semicircle next to the forecast cone that reached over the Florida panhandle and a part of Alabama.

When a reporter asked him about the add-on, Trump only said, “I don’t know.” However, a White House insider source told the Washington Post it was Trump himself who drew in the bubble.

Afterwards a similar message warning against public statements was given to agency staff after what has become known as “Sharpie-gate.”

“This is the first time I’ve felt pressure from above to not say what truly is the forecast,” a NOAA meteorologist told the Post. “It’s hard for me to wrap my head around. One of the things we train on is to dispel inaccurate rumors and ultimately that is what was occurring — ultimately what the Alabama office did is provide a forecast with their tweet, that is what they get paid to do.”

Another official at NOAA, which is the parent agency of NWS, said the memo to staff bore “no political motivation.”

But the weather forecasting world raged after an unsigned statement emerged Friday from NOAA that stressed the NWS office in Birmingham erred in its tweet about Dorian.

“The Birmingham National Weather Service’s Sunday morning tweet spoke in absolute terms that were inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time,” an unnamed NOAA representative said.

Meteorologists and scientists from the public and private sectors voiced concerns about the president’s influence over NOAA.

“Let me assure you the hard working employees of the NWS had nothing to do with the utterly disgusting and disingenuous tweet sent out by NOAA management tonight,” tweeted Dan Sobien, who is the president of the union that represents NWS employees.

James Spann, a popular meteorologist based in Birmingham, said, “The tweet from NWS Birmingham was spot on and accurate. If they are coming after them, they might as well come after me. How in the world has it come to this?”

The American Meteorological Society reacted to the NOAA press release by putting out a statement that said, “AMS believes the criticism of the Birmingham forecast office is unwarranted; rather they should have been commended for their quick action based on science in clearly communicating the lack of threat to the citizens of Alabama.”

A link shared by NOAA on Friday was the same one presented by Coast Guard Rear Adm. Peter Brown, Trump’s homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, who in a statement Thursday said he was the one who briefed the president about Dorian’s forecast in the first place. The link leads to a National Hurricane Center graphic showing the odds of low-end tropical-storm-force winds associated with Dorian striking Alabama dropping significantly by Sunday, from 10% to 5%.

In an attempt to ease tensions, NWS leadership sent a letter to staff on Saturday.

“We want to assure you that we stand behind our entire workforce and the integrity of the forecast process, including the incredible scientific, technical and engineering skill you demonstrated for this event,” they wrote. “We saw first hand that our integrated forecast process works, and we continue to embrace and uphold the essential integrity of the entire forecast process as it was applied by ALL NWS offices to ensure public safety first and foremost.”

The National Hurricane Center began tracking the system that became Dorian more than two weeks ago. It largely spared Puerto Rico as it first strengthened into a hurricane before leveling the northern Bahamas as a powerful Category 5 Hurricane with 185 mph sustained maximum winds.

Dorian sat over the northern part of the Bahamas for much of Labor Day weekend, killing at least 43 people and damaging or destroying thousands of buildings before taking aim at the coasts of Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas this week.

Hugging the East Coast, Dorian made landfall again over Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, as a weakened Category 1 hurricane. There in the Outer Banks, it caused flooding and power outages, leaving some residents stranded. Dorian strengthened back up to Category 2 status on Sunday before becoming a hurricane-force post-tropical cyclone that hit Nova Scotia, Canada.