The weather app doesn't give much money. The main business sells weather and climate data B2B: agro, insurance, logistics, retail, supply chains, advertisement, medical, etc.
Companies whose primary business is weather apps are small, and such areas are highly competitive.
"Speaking to the The Palm Beach Post at the time, Barry Myers said he supported the weather service returning to its “core mission … which is protecting other people’s lives and property” instead of spending “hundreds of millions of dollars a year, every day, producing forecasts of ‘warm and sunny.’”"
Also from the same article:
"He told ABC News in May 2005: “We work hard every day competing with other companies and we also have to compete with the government.”"
As far as I know, AccuWeather is the main beneficiary. You can easily find reliable sources about it.
The cause is that NOAA publishes all weather data, calculated models (global coverage), meteostations data (global coverage), and weather radars to the public for free (US only, maybe also Canada, I don't remember). Therefore, many weather companies use such data to do their business and compete directly with AccuWeather. They don't like this.
On the other hand, state weather agencies that calculate global models in many countries don't provide such data for free. Therefore, startups and small companies who work in weather and climate fields use NOAA data and directly compete with AccuWeather or don't pay them for data access.
i think it more has to do with wanting to cut the deficit in preparation for tax cut extension + NOAA and other science agencies are politically vulnerable in a way that medicare/ss are not
