New Head Of National Weather Service Is (Among Other Things) A Bureaucratic Survivor Of Sharpiegate

[hatrack]

Ken Graham, who guided the National Hurricane Center through two record-breaking Atlantic hurricane seasons and the political storm known as Sharpiegate, will become the next director of the National Weather Service.
10 steps you can take to lower your carbon footprint

Graham, whose selection was announced Tuesday, takes the helm of the agency charged with forecasting the nation’s weather and how it can threaten Americans’ lives and property at a critical point. Climate change is intensifying heat waves, fires, droughts and storms, escalating the costs stemming from these extreme weather disasters. Last year, 20 separate billion-dollar weather disasters struck the Lower 48, the second most on record.

Rick Spinrad, who oversees the Weather Service as head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, introduced Graham as director at a news briefing in Washington. Spinrad described Graham as a man with “extraordinary experience,” “deep knowledge of atmospheric science,” “impressive communication skills” and a “calm demeanor” and as “someone who excels at collaborations and partnerships.”

EDIT

In one of the biggest weather controversies during Donald Trump’s time in the White House, when Trump altered a Hurricane Center tracking map with a black marker in 2019 to support his erroneous charge that Hurricane Dorian threatened Alabama, Graham sought to defend his agency’s scientific integrity behind the scenes. Even though Trump’s tweet and the altered map were wrong, NOAA — facing political pressure from White House and Commerce Department political appointees — released an unsigned statement backing the president and contradicting the forecast by the Weather Service office in Birmingham that the storm posed no danger. NOAA’s actions infuriated members of public, many of whom emailed the Hurricane Center saying that it could no longer be trusted. In response, Graham pleaded with the Weather Service’s leaders to craft a response signaling that federal officials’ scientific warnings would not be compromised.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/06/07/national-weather-service-ken-graham/

[TigressDem]

1. Well, he knew what he was doing. Just couldn't get the truth past the SPIN.

Now with Biden in charge, he can just do his job.

Boring.

But sometimes boring is good.