The Public Faces of Weather

A session for ICHM 2008, "Weather and Everyday Life"

Format: 4 Papers

Organized by Roger Turner, University of Pennsylvania

Over the last century and a half, billions of people have experienced weather through the mass media. Newspapers and television have used synoptic maps, radar images, daily forecasts and stories from the scene to represent the weather to a broad audience. Several kinds of people have been tasked with interpreting these representations, from government forecasters to PhD researchers to people hired for their looks more than their scientific expertise. This session explores the development of the meteorologist as a public role in the American mass media, focusing on how the credibility of atmospheric science has been shaped by the social positions of these visible faces. Jamie Pietruska focuses on the Weather Bureau's policing of government and private weather forecasters at the turn of the twentieth century, when the Bureau was especially concerned with building its public credibility. Pietruska considers the 1893 trial of a Weather Bureau forecaster who was charged with producing inaccurate daily weather maps, maps that were printed in newspapers, mailed to thousands of subscribers, and thus functioned as a public symbol of the Bureau's authority.  Pietruska then traces disputes over accuracy into the early twentieth century, when the Bureau embarked on a vigorous campaign to expose popular long-range weather prophets as not merely inaccurate forecasters but dangerous quacks intent on defrauding a gullible public. Bob Henson tracks the public personae of hurricane forecasters through the 20th century. From the Galveston hurricane to Katrina, these men have become the public face of the government’s meteorological establishment; they provide a careful balance of reassurance, warning, and expertise in moments of crisis. Roger Turner explores why research meteorologists felt their scientific credibility was threatened by television and gender dynamics during the 1950s. As TV emerged as a popular medium, news producers invented the “weather girl” to attract viewers: about half of weathercasters were young women by 1955. The American Meteorological Society developed a certification program that included only three women among the first 200 weathercasters granted seals of approval. Kris Wilson argues that TV weathercasters are perhaps the most visible scientists in the United States. Research indicates that TV weathercasters may be the only regular science source for most adults, but that many weathercasters are not trained in science to serve in that capacity. Dr. Wilson will also discuss several initiatives being introduced to transform TV weathercasters into “station scientists” and the potential impacts of these programs, particularly with the science of global climate change.