Short answers, pulled from the story.
NOAA was established on the 3rd of October 1970, through Reorganization Plan No. 4, after President Richard Nixon proposed creating the agency to address national needs for weather protection, environmental understanding, and marine resource development.
NOAA was placed in the Department of Commerce because of a personal dispute between President Nixon and his interior secretary, Wally Hickel. Nixon was angered by a letter Hickel wrote urging him to listen to Vietnam War demonstrators, and punished him by keeping NOAA out of his department.
The National Weather Service issues more than 734,000 weather forecasts and more than 850,000 river forecasts annually, along with more than 45,000 severe weather warnings.
On the 27th of February 2025, staffers from the Department of Government Efficiency entered NOAA headquarters and began layoffs. By early March 2025, roughly 1,300 employees, approximately 10% of the total workforce, had been let go.
In September 2019, NOAA had stated that Hurricane Dorian's forecast path did not include Alabama, but on the 6th of September NOAA issued a statement backing President Trump's claim that Alabama would be hit and labelling the Birmingham National Weather Service's accurate correction as wrong. The New York Times reported this followed a threat by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to fire high-level NOAA staff.
NOAA operates through six major line offices: the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service; the National Marine Fisheries Service; the National Ocean Service; the National Weather Service; the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research; and the Office of Marine and Aviation Operations.