Government job cuts under the Trump administration are directly affecting a key tool to track weather patterns.

The National Weather Service says it has to suspend some weather balloon launches in Albany and other locations.

Weather balloons are launched into the sky and sample the weather up above us.

A statement from the National Weather Service said it’s temporarily suspending some launches in Albany and in Maine due to a lack of staff. The weather forecasting agency has been impacted by the mass federal firings under the Trump administration.

Without weather balloons, meteorologists don’t have that extra layer of critical information needed during severe weather and NewsChannel 13 First Warning Alert days.

Learn about the type of data these weather balloons collect and how it’s invaluable to help forecasters more accurately predict bad weather, by watching the video of Tessa Bentulan’s story.