National Weather Service funding in hands of Senate

"Basically what this bill would do to the National Weather Service is cut its budget for the rest of this fiscal year, which there is 6 months left by 28% or around $128 million,” said Hopkins.

William Hopkins, Executive Vice President of the NWS Employee Organization believes the budget cuts would devastate all aspects of weather prediction.

"It's not good, and so we're looking at all our options and we will go from there," said Hopkins.

Hopkins says some of the impacts felt would be rolling office closures. For instance, Lubbock’s office could be closed for 30 days at a time.

"Our watches and warnings would still be going out, but they would be coming from a forecast office that does not know our terrain, does not know our climatology," said Hopkins.

Lubbock Congressman Randy Neugebauer sees it a different way.

"With the technology that we have today, we may be able to observe larger areas and be just as effective," said Neugebauer.

Other impacts include rolling closures of upper-air observations currently made twice a day, reduced to every other day.

"This data of course will have a direct impact into the model data, because the models won’t be as reliable because the data will be old or no data at all,” said Hopkins.

With severe weather and hurricane season pending, Hopkins believes lives could potentially be lost if there is lack in data and weather offices closed.

"You know we are not trying to scare people. It's just these are things that could happen if we suffer this kind of budget cut," said Hopkins.

"I think it's disingenuous to start trying to scare the American people about these cuts. These cuts are going to have to be made," said Neugebauer.

"We are making leaps and bounds in technology and science. Should these cuts come to fruition they will set us back 2 or 3 decades on technology," said Hopkins.

It’s now up to the Senate to decide what the future holds for the National Weather Service.