If you are above a certain age, perhaps 60 or so, you may recall in your youth the local TV stations’ weather reports each evening were very different from what you see today. If you grew up within a few hundred miles of Detroit, you likely remember the ever-cheerful Sonny Elliot, the long-serving NBC station weatherman. He told jokes and made silly sounds. And he would show the one daily photo from space of the clouds over the United States, and would transition, as TV weather folk of the era did, to a painted map, upon which he would place clouds, a bright sun and other weather phenomena attached with magnets. That was high tech in my youth. I especially admired Colonel Elliot, as he was a World War II bomber pilot and stayed active in the reserves, but that’s a tale for another time.

Today, you likely don’t even watch much local weather, in that you have a direct connection to the most recent weather data, satellite photos, forecasts and more in your pocket. You pull out your cell phone and you are given the most up to date and accurate weather forecast around.

Or at least, you used to.

We’ve had a national weather service, believe it or not, since 1870. Granted, back then the forecasts were mostly reports sent in by telegraph operators along railroad lines. Things got better. A lot better.

The Republicans have often, over the years, had particular heartburn regarding the National Weather Service and what it does. Back in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan’s NOAA administrator (NOAA oversees the NWS) proposed selling off all the nation’s weather satellites and totally privatizing weather forecasting and firing most of the NWS staff. Happily, that never made it through Congress, as that was back in a time when presidents thought Congress should have a say in how the nation is run, but I digress…

Later, GOP U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania proposed the NWS stop passing out any weather information for free, and instead let companies (e.g., the Weather Channel) buy the data your tax dollars paid for. And again, happily, that proposal died in committee.

So, what’s different today? Well, we have a president who thinks he is a king, and a GOP that bends the knee to that belief. Oh, and apparently a Supreme Court that also believes in autocracy. Not long ago, President Donald Trump fired hundreds of people from NOAA and from the NWS. And he did so just weeks before the start of hurricane season. President Trump’s cuts were so draconian the nation’s 122 local weather service forecast centers are short staffed, many severely so.

And that short staffing is already having consequences. Many of those offices no longer have enough people working there to keep the place operating, and their weather eyes open, 24 hours per day. That means weather happening after, say, 5 p.m., will be largely unobserved until the morning shift arrives.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, just last week, unusually severe weather (cough… climate change… cough) did massive damage and killed at least 28 people across Missouri, Kentucky and Virginia. As noted in a report on the deaths and damage, multiple NWS offices in the region were short-staffed as the storms formed, with 25% of the positions vacant in London, Kentucky and fully 29% vacant in the Louisville office. I’m sure the good folks there did their best, but when you are missing nearly a third of your experts, there will be consequences. Oh, and President Trump went golfing, and never issued any statement of sympathy or support.

Oh, and let’s talk about balloons.

Did you know the NWS still uses weather balloons? Well, they do, or they did, or they still do, some. Prior to the current autocracy, the NWS launched balloons twice each day from 100 locations. I bet you didn’t know that, and these balloons are vital to accurate weather forecasting, be it for good weather or for big storms. Now, because of Trump-required budget cuts, the NWS is cutting back or eliminating launches from 11 locations and reducing the frequency of launch at many other locations around the country.

These balloons are remarkable technology, soaring up to 100,000 feet or so and reporting back vital weather data that, when strung together with the data from other balloons and other observations, allows for the most accurate weather forecasts possible (after a few days, the balloons explode and the scientific instrument package descends to Earth on a parachute. About 20% are recovered and reused. Find one and you can get a reward).

That is, the balloons used to do that.

Here in Colorado, the Grand Junction weather office is cutting its balloon launches in half. Other places are cutting even more. Weather balloons are a vital part of our ability to have accurate forecasts, and so future weather forecasts will inevitably be less accurate.

The president-elect of the American Meteorological Society recently used this analogy about a steel building: “Nobody can say how many bolts you can leave out or remove before the structural integrity is compromised.” Every weather balloon, and especially every weather forecaster, balloon launcher, and other NWS staffers, are vital to knowing what is coming. The recent tornado observed, in May, near DIA, should be a warning. At least 130 flights were delayed and other strong storms damaged dozens of homes and other buildings in Adams and Elbert counties. Don’t we want the maximum possible warning time for such events?

We’ve come a long way from Sonny Elliot slapping cartoon clouds on a painted drawing of the United States. Vital weather knowledge is not just a way to make sure you pick the right day of the week to have a picnic. Rather, there are many industries that must have accurate weather data coming in. A Forbes story a few years back highlighted construction, retail, turf-related sports, amusement parks and mining as just a few of the businesses that require good weather data to survive.

The Trump cuts to the sciences represent a clear and direct threat on the health and livelihoods of millions of Americans. Yet the cavalier and foolish cuts we are seeing harken to a dark time coming. Cuts to weather forecasting are a mere canary in the coal mine when compared to the massive cuts made throughout the scientific community.

We as a nation will be less safe and less healthy, but at last the billionaires will get their tax cuts.

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.