PERFECT STORM

Trump Wants to Bring ‘Sharpiegate’ Scientist Back to NOAA

Neil Jacobs was in charge in 2019 when the president appeared to redraw an official map of Hurricane Dorian’s projected path using a permanent marker.

President Donald Trump has nominated Neil Jacobs as administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—the same acting chief who was overseeing the agency during the “Sharpiegate” scandal during his first term. In 2019, Trump tweeted that Hurricane Dorian would hit Alabama, even though forecasters at the National Hurricane Center gave it basically no chance of moving that far west. To “prove” he was right, Trump showed a map of the hurricane path that had been altered with black permanent marker—Trump’s writing utensil of choice—to include Alabama. Jacobs’ agency then issued an unsigned statement backing the president’s Sharpie map, saying the local forecasters’ statements “were inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time.” The Commerce Department later blasted NOAA, saying it had “unnecessarily rebuked NWS forecasters for issuing a public safety message about Hurricane Dorian in response to public inquiries—that is, for doing their jobs.” Elon Musk’s DOGE representatives descended on the agency and demanded access to IT systems on Tuesday, sparking fears of downsizing, The Guardian reported.

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Janna Brancolini

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