2 days Ago By Kyle McClenagan
Less than a month after beginning the application process to become a student volunteer for the National Weather Service office in Houston, 17-year-old Eric Nyce was surprised to receive an email informing him that the program — slated to begin this summer — had been abruptly canceled. "We regret to inform you that due to recent changes to our staffing, we must cancel our volunteer program for 2025," the local National Weather Service office wrote in the Monday email, which Nyce shared on social media . "This is a very difficult decision for us to make, as having students around the office is one of the highlights of our summer.
" Nyce, an amateur storm chaser attending Lone Star College in Houston, said he’s considered a career in meteorology and hoped the potential internship opportunity could help him decide if that would be a good fit for him. "I really wanted to make a career out of being a meteorologist, but last year I was starting to hear a lot more people saying that it's starting to get hard to get into meteorology, especially in the broadcast side," he said. "So, I was like, I want to do an internship to see if it is the career choice for me because as much as I love it, I also want to make a living.
" The cancelation announcement comes as hundreds of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) employees were laid off as part of a federal workforce reduction by the administration of President Donald Trump. NOAA is the federal agency that oversees the National Weather Service (NWS). Speaking to the Texas Newsroom on Tuesday, former NOAA assistant administrator for research Craig McLean said between 600-800 people had been fired from NOAA and NWS during the previous week.
A spokesperson for the NWS in Houston deferred comment to a spokesperson for NOAA, who said the student volunteer program was cancelled because of “a few retirements at the office.” Having applied for the program in February, Nyce said he was surprised it got scrapped so quickly. "I wasn't expecting it because I was probably thinking that if they posted it in February, they might have had an idea that [the cancelation] could have been happening and might have canceled it before people started applying," he said.
"I wasn't really thinking, ‘Oh, this might be canceled,’ until it happened." Now, Nyce said he is less likely to pursue his dream of becoming a meteorologist. "I was pretty disappointed and distraught knowing that I really wanted to do this when I first heard about it," he said.
"Now that it has been canceled, it kind of just helps make my decision-making process a little bit easier to just say, ‘Hey, maybe meteorology isn't a good fit for me career-wise.'" Nyce said he is turning his attention toward becoming a firefighter but will continue to enjoy storm chasing and meteorology as a hobby. "I was going [to college] for meteorology, but now I think I'm going to end up changing my major either to continue with Lone Star College and become a firefighter or just stick with some sort of degree like construction engineering and go forward with that," he said.
The cutting of programs and internship opportunities like the one previously offered by NWS in Houston could lead to some unintended consequences, Nyce said. "I just hope that people my age don't completely give up on what they want to do because eventually, 10 years from now, there is going to be a need for meteorologists because a lot of people are not going to be trying to continue to work on becoming meteorologists because of what's happening right now," he said..
