Science Friday - Forecasting Cuts Spark Worries About Hurricane Season | Soothing Babies With Music

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

Emergency response experts say that funding and staff cuts at the National Weather Service could mean less reliable weather forecast. And, babies like music, but they generally have preferences. A music therapist reveals the best kinds of music to soothe a baby.Forecasting Cuts Leave Some Worried For Hurricane SeasonMany in Georgia are still recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Helene last fall.Now, firings and funding cuts at the National Weather Service and other agencies have some experts worried about accurate forecasts heading into the next hurricane season, which begins June 1.Hundreds of workers have been fired from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, including meteorologists at the Weather Service. More cuts by the Trump administration are reportedly on the way.“The forecast is not going to be as accurate because it won’t have as much information in it,” said Chuck Watson of ENKI research in Savannah, who studies disaster preparedness and response.Read the whole story at sciencefriday.com.Tips For Soothing Your Baby With Music, From A Music TherapistIf you’re a parent, you’ve probably heard that playing music is good for your baby’s brain development. But that’s where many people’s knowledge about the subject ends. What about music is good for a baby’s development? Will queuing up a lullaby playlist get the job done? And how can you tell if it’s all just too much for them?Sarah Nolan, a board-certified music therapist and neonatal intensive care unit music therapist in Children’s Hospital Los Angeles’ Mark Taper and Johnny Mercer Artists Program recently published recommendations on the best ways to play music around your baby.Host Ira Flatow talks to Nolan about the ideal length of time to play music, what kinds of music are best, and the benefits of music therapy to babies and adults alike.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.  Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. And I'm Flora Lichten. Today in the podcast, a music therapist reveals the best kinds of music to actually sue the baby. But first, why cuts to NOAA have hurricane forecasters nervous? Some of the concern is the accuracy of the forecasts. Hundreds of federal workers at NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, have been laid off or are in job limbo, thanks to the Trump administration. cuts to government. But what will these cuts mean for hurricane forecasting in coastal states like

Georgia, states that rely on data and resources from this agency to prepare and weather storms? Here to tell us more is Emily Jones, climate reporter for Grist and WABE in Atlanta, Georgia. Emily's based in Savannah. Emily, welcome to Science Friday. Thank you so much for having me. Okay, let's take a step back. I mean, who prepares Georgia for a hurricane? Who's in charge of that? Well, it's, as you can imagine, a huge coordinated effort with, you know, all kinds of different agencies and groups and school districts and cities. But the sort of point people that bring all those groups together and coordinate that effort are emergency managers. So there's a state emergency management agency. Then there are local emergency management agencies dotted all over the state in different counties, you know, that really handle that effort.

at a local level. And so they're the ones that kind of bring together everything that needs to happen. If an evacuation needs to happen, they're the ones that are coordinating it. They communicate with the public information about how to prepare for any storm. And then when one is actually coming, you know, how to prepare for this storm, what you need to do, whether roads are closed, whether you need to boil your water, comes down to and sort of filters through emergency management agencies. Okay. And how do these emergency managers rely on NOAA during hurricane season? Noah is the agency that puts out the forecasts and all of the information that's needed to tell people that information I was talking about, you know, how much rain they're going to get. Do they need to prepare for flooding? Do they need to prepare for winds? Does there need to be an evacuation? Noah is the sort of parent agency of the National Weather Service stations that are all over the country handling sort of little.

individual, regional chunks of the country for forecasting. And then NOAA is also the parent agency of the National Hurricane Center down in Miami, which puts out all of that incredibly detailed information that you see about the track of a storm and the size of a storm and where exactly it is at any given time. You know, once a storm reaches tropical depression status, the National Hurricane Center starts putting out these regular updates about where the storm is, where it's going, what they expect, what different places. need to do to prepare. So that is really vital for emergency managers. And beyond just, you know, knowing what the forecast is going to be, emergency managers also have relationships with those offices and the people in those offices so that they can prepare so that they know who they need to call if they have a question, if they need more information about the forecast. And that's

one of the things that's really starting to create concern right now with these cuts is it's not just about hurricane season that hasn't hit us yet. Emergency managers like to maintain those relationships all the time so that they know who the person is at their National Weather Service station that they can call. Right. They have them on speed dial. Exactly. Exactly. I spoke with Lynn Budd, who is the president of the National Emergency Management Association. And she explained, you know, the phrase she used that really struck me was, you know, you don't want to be exchanging business cards during the storm. We're planners. We like to plan. We like to know what's going to happen. How do we prepare for it?

That seems reasonable. Yeah. Are they relying on other agencies for information as well? They are. And this is something in reporting this story that really struck me because it was something that never occurred to me, even as someone who covers forecasting and climate and weather and hurricanes, is that a lot of the information that goes into NOAA and National Weather Service forecasting comes from other places or from, you know,

technology that's managed by other agencies. So a lot of satellite imagery, for instance, of weather patterns and just sort of of the earth that goes into forecasting, you know, who manages satellites? Well, NASA, the Department of Defense, you know, there's information about flooding of different waterways that comes from floodgages, which are managed by all kinds of different agencies. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Geological Survey, even the EPA, local state, state Environmental Protection agencies. I mean, all of these different groups manage flood gauges. There are weather gauges at airports. You know, when you get a forecast, the temperature is often tells you that

the temperature at the nearest airport. That's the FAA has weather stations at airports because they have to monitor weather for planes taking off. And so all of those inputs go into national weather service and National Hurricane Center forecasting. So yes, they do rely on other agencies, which again, I didn't really realize the extent to which all of that is interconnected until another of my sources for this story, Chuck Watson, who studies disasters and disaster preparedness for an organization called Enki Research, which is based in Savannah, Georgia, where I am. And he explained, you know, how interwoven all of this, this sort of whole system is. It's like a fabric or a carpet. You start picking at it like my cat does. You start pulling that thread out. Before long, you've got this big rip in the

carpet in a big mess. Amazing visual. Okay, so are the experts that you talk to? Are they concerned about these cuts? They are. And again, some of it, some of the concern is just, not just, I don't want to downplay it, but some of the concern is, is about the confusion that exists right now, that sort of limbo that you referred to, that, you know, as Lynn Budd said, emergency managers like to prepare and they don't feel like they can be prepared if they don't even know who the person to call is. The other thing that they're concerned about, though, is the accuracy of the forecasts because so many of the decisions that go into hurricane preparedness have to do with the forecast of what the storm is going to do. Where is the storm going to be? And by extension,

how far out are the strong winds going to reach? And therefore, you know, what places have to worry about flooding? What places have to worry about trees falling down? And the biggest question whether hurricane do you need to evacuate? And all of that, you know, relies on having accurate forecasts so that you can say with a reasonable degree of certainty, you know, that storm is going to stay far enough offshore. We're going to be okay. We don't need to evacuate. Or that storm is going to come close enough that this area is going to flood. It's not going to be safe. We need to get our people out. And if you're less certain about the forecast because you don't have as much data to put into the forecast, you know, there is some potential that you have to order an evacuation

that maybe you wouldn't have needed a few years ago if you could have said with absolute certainty that the storm was going to stay away. Did noa comment on this story? They did. I reached out to them asking for a comment, as I'm sure lots and lots of reporters have done since these firings were announced. And they did send me a statement that they seem to have at the ready, saying that they declined to discuss personnel matters, but that the agency is still providing timely information, research and resources.

You know, pursuant to their public safety mission was the phrasing that they used. When does hurricane season start this year? So hurricane season officially starts on June 1st, although we do sometimes see tropical activity outside of hurricane season. Several times in the last few years, we've seen a tropical storm or a tropical depression actually spin up sooner than June 1st. And are people already bracing for it? Is there any preparation that happens now? Yes.

I mean, you know, when you live in a place like coastal Georgia or Florida or the Gulf Coast, you know, or the Carolinas, you are almost in a constant state of hurricane preparation. And yeah, there are tips that, again, those emergency management agencies send out headed into hurricane. season reminding people, make your plan, you know, know what you're going to do if you need an evacuation, stock up on your supplies in case you run out of power. These are all things that pretty much all of us do every hurricane season. I think we probably, in my house, we probably have to restock some of our supplies because we went through them when we lost power during Hurricane Helene. Yeah, I mean, I'm curious about that, how the public is feeling about this. Have you gotten any sense that the public is sort of conscious of these cuts and concerned? Is this adding a

of stress for regular people? I am not sure that that is there yet in kind of the general consciousness. I mean, you know, when this story published, I did see several people on my social media feeds sharing it and saying, you know, look, this is pointing to a serious concern. And, you know, the story mentioned a couple of really local waterways that people were like, hey, yes, we do need to know if those are going to flood. I think that general concern about this stuff, you know, it tends to ramp up more as we get into hurricane season June 1st. And then again, September, late August, September, October is really sort of the busiest part of hurricane season. And so, you know, I think we'll also see more concern accelerate then. Emily, thank you so much for walking us through your reporting today.

Appreciate it. Of course. Thank you so much for having me. Emily Jones, climate reporter for Grist and WABE in Atlanta, Georgia. Emily's based in Savannah. After the break, a music therapist tunes us in to the best ways to play music for your baby and how it can help their development. You need to look at signs from their body or how they're responding

that they're actually, quote-unquote, enjoying this music. If you're a parent, you've probably heard that playing music is good for your baby's brain development. But I think that's where most people's knowledge about the subject. Well, it sort of ends there. We'll queuing up a lullaby playlist, get the job done. And how can you tell if it's all just too much for the baby? Here to help us is Sarah Nolan, a board-certified music therapist and neonatal intensive care unit music therapist at Children's Hospital, Los Angeles.

Welcome to Science Friday. Hi, thanks for having me. Sarah, you published recommendations recently about the best ways to think about playing music for your baby. I do want to get to those. But let's first talk about why is music important to play for babies as they grow up? Is this sort of a medical tool? Yeah, you're right. I think that music is something that we have that's so accessible to everybody.

And so it's obvious that we want to kind of share that with our children as they grow up, right? I think the important part is that we think of the baby's development. And so in sharing that music with our babies, we're still thinking about the learning opportunities. We're still thinking about how can we share this music to them, but still use this as a way for them to learn something, to help them develop. So usually we'll give them things to touch, things to look at, and that's part of their brain development. And so really using the music is for us a way for them to learn. All right. So what common misconceptions do you see parents making when they play music for their babies? Is it how long they're playing it, when they're playing it? Tell us about that. Yeah, I think what ends up happening sometimes is a parent might say, oh, my baby loves music. I play it for them all day. Or he loves listening to the song over and over and over again. And I'll often remind them and tell them, well, the baby can't tell you verbally, right? So you need to look at signs from their body or how they're responding. that they're actually, quote-unquote, enjoying this music.

These are some signs that they're telling us that they're like it, and these are signs that they're telling us that they're actually becoming overstimulated. The length of music can also be somewhat of a misconception because a lot of times we'll play a playlist, and we kind of just leave it there, and then we walk away and we say, oh, they've enjoyed it. But then how could we really tell if we're not watching them the entire time? And so that might actually not be the most beneficial for the baby.

Is there a sweet spot? Is there an ideal length of time for them to listen? Because I know babies have a pretty short attention span, don't they? Yes, that's a huge important thing to remember is the attention span of babies. When a baby is listening to a song or music for about 30 to 45 minutes, after that general period, they're no longer really paying attention to that music. And so it just really becomes noise. So at that point, we have to remember, is there still an opportunity for learning here? Is my baby still learning anything? Or is he just listening to the sound continuing in the background? That's really not doing anything for them anymore. And so the 30 to 45 minute at a time is usually what's recommended. So those are things that we need to remember. Are there's actual signs you

can see that your baby makes, they show that it's no longer interested? Totally. Generally speaking, let's say if they're yawning excessively, obviously yawning is a sign that maybe a baby is tired or sleepy. But if they're excessively yawning but they can't fall asleep, it might be a sign that the stimulation from the music is actually keeping them awake as opposed to helping them fall asleep. Interesting. I know you see babies all day in the hospital. Tell us what you've learned about the kinds of music that parents would find helpful to play and how the babies react to that. Right. So I specifically work in our NICU, which at Children's Hospital stands for the neonate and infant critical care unit. So we see a lot of very, very sick babies that can range an age from a premature baby who's born way too early, all the way up to maybe a 10 or 11 month old that just has a lot of medical issues. Now, we always want to ask parents, what are our songs or types of music that you enjoy as a family? because more often than not, this baby can hear what mom was listening to while she was pregnant

with the baby. And we always want to bring a sense of familiarity to the space. And so if a parent enjoys rock music, then we'll try our best to use rock music. The only thing that's going to change in my work is how I deliver that music. So with babies, they prefer songs that are predictable. They prefer songs that are simple. And so I might have to simplify, let's say, a melody of a song, or I change the way that I play it based off of what's appropriate for a baby. So I might not play in full volume. I might not play full chords. I might just kind of do a little bit of light plucking on the guitar.

And so it's really more important to remember the specific elements of music that make it appropriate for a baby. So the simplicity, the volume, the predictability of the song. Do you have a favorite guitar melody you like to play for your kids? Well, my favorite specifically is I love you are my sunshine. It's also really easy for me to change the lyrics. So that's something that we do a lot with parents. Why don't we add your baby's name into the song? What are some things that you want to tell your baby? So the melody stays the same, but it's more familiar and it's more personal to the parent. I'm here to empower parents

that they can do some of these things at home, which is really kind of the whole point of this education that we're trying to do for them. Thank you, Sarah, for taking time and sharing what you do with Thank you so much. Sarah Nolan, a neonatal intensive care unit music therapist at Children's Hospital, Los Angeles, part of the Mark Taper and Johnny Mercer Artist Program. That's about all the time we have for now. A lot of people help make this show happen. Danielle Johnson. Jason Rosenberg. Rasha Eredi. Sandy Roberts. I'm Ira Flato. Thanks for listening.