NOAA's Storm Prediction Center facility among planned DOGE cuts
Despite the deadly storms over the weekend, one of the core government facilities tracking severe thunderstorms and tornadoes, is listed on the website of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency as one with a planned office closure.
The Storm Prediction Center -- one of several entities housed at the National Weather Center in Norman, Oklahoma -- issues severe weather forecasts across the nation and identifies threat zones where dangerous thunderstorms and tornadoes could move through days in advance.
A spokesperson with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- the federal agency that studies and reports on the oceans, atmosphere and coasts as well as oversees the Storm Prediction Center as well as the National Weather Service -- confirmed that the "building lease issue is in flux."
With this latest storm, the Storm Prediction Center began alerting about a potential significant severe weather event across parts of the Midwest and South several days ahead of the first tornadoes. The center also tracks which parts of the country could face critical to extreme fire weather conditions -- as Oklahoma, where the center is located, remains under alert for fire danger after being devastated by deadly blazes over the weekend.
At least 40 people were killed amid more than 970 severe storm reports across more than two dozen states over the weekend. A three-day tornado outbreak tore through at least nine states.
Republican Rep. Tom Cole claims that he intervened and that the center in Norman will not lose its lease.
"I am so proud to have advocated for them. As the Representative for Oklahoma's Fourth District, I will always fight for Oklahomans and my constituents!" Cole wrote in a release last week.
But the building is still listed, along with hundreds of others, as a target of DOGE's cuts.
The White House said that the General Services Administration is "reviewing all options to optimize our footprint and building utilization."
"A component of our space consolidation plan will be the termination of many soft term leases. To the extent these terminations affect public facing facilities and/or existing tenants, we are working with our agency partners to secure suitable alternative space. In many cases this will allow us to increase space utilization and obtain improved terms," a White House spokesperson said.
When the GSA briefly listed office leases it planned to terminate a few weeks ago, the NOAA locations sent shockwaves through the scientific community especially with tornado season (and hurricane season) coming up.
The Norman facility has, according to local outlets, been impacted by some staffing cuts.
Online the center boasts of some 500 scientists, engineers, meteorologists and climatologists from NOAA, the University of Oklahoma and state agencies. It specializes in storm prediction and advancing radar technology.
"We serve as a national resource for severe weather research and work collaboratively with the National Weather Service to ensure that their forecasters have the knowledge, capabilities, and technologies to remain world leaders in effectively communicating accurate, timely, and actionable forecasts and warnings of extreme weather to the public and commerce," their mission statement reads.
ABC News has reached out to local Oklahoma lawmakers for comment, but hasn't heard back by the time of publication.
