During a weather broadcast, meteorologist John Morales said of his ability to predict hurricanes in Florida, “I am not sure I can do that this year because of the cuts, the gutting, the sledgehammer attack on science in general.”
Morales said these words in June 2025, not in the summer of 2026, as some posts implied. Snopes reached out to him, asking if he felt the same way a year on, and awaits a response.
In August 2026, a rumor spread that Florida weatherman John Morales, of NBC 6 South Florida, had gone off-script during a weather broadcast saying he feared he could no longer accurately predict hurricanes due to government funding cuts enacted by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
As Snopes readers emailed and searched the website seeking to confirm this was true, the claim spread on social media. One Facebook post showed an image of Morales and said he had “suddenly shifted gear” during a broadcast to tell the audience he was no longer certain he could predict the weather “this year” due to “the cuts, the gutting, the sledgehammer attack on science in general” (archived):
Morales did say these words, and as a result we’ve rated the quote correctly attributed. However, he did not say it in the summer of 2026, but in June 2025.
We reached out to Morales to ask if he still felt he could no longer confidently predict the path of hurricanes. We will update this report should he respond.
Snopes identified the video clip in which Morales said he feared he could no longer predict hurricanes due to government funding cuts. It was posted to the YouTube channel of NBC 6 South Florida, a local NBC affiliate, on June 3, 2025:
After re-airing a clip from 2019 in which he discussed Hurricane Dorian, a violent hurricane that had devastated the Bahamas and was moving up the
Lots of people in Florida were concerned the hurricane was heading here. And as you’ve grown accustomed to my presentations over my 34 years in South Florida newscasts, confidently I went on TV and I told you, it’s going to turn. You don’t need to worry. It is going to turn.
And I am here to tell you that I am not sure I can do that this year because of the cuts, the gutting, the sledgehammer attack on science in general.
And I could talk about that for a long, long time and how that is affecting the U.S. leadership in science over many years and how we’re losing that leadership. And this is a multigenerational impact on science in this country. All right.
But specifically, let’s talk about the federal government cuts to the National Weather Service and to NOAA. Did you know that Central and South Florida National Weather Service offices are currently basically 20 to 40% understaffed from Tampa to Key West, including the Miami office? Twenty to 40% understaffed.
Now, this type of staffing shortage is having impacts across the nation because there’s been a nearly 20% reduction in weather balloon releases, launches that carry those radio signs. And what we’re starting to see is that the quality of the forecasts is becoming degraded. There’s also a chance, because of some of these cuts, that NOAA hurricane Hunter aircraft will not be able to fly this year, and with less reconnaissance missions, we may be flying blind, and we may not exactly know how strong a hurricane is before it reaches the coastline, like happened a couple of years ago in Hurricane Otis in Acapulco, Mexico.
At the time, reputable news outlets such as The Independent and The New York Times reported on Morales’ broadcast.
For further reading, Snopes covered several claims related to Trump administration government funding cuts, including the rumor that such cuts caused a screwworm outbreak in the U.S.
