“And Now, Your Forecast”

On the shelf of quintessential American phenomena, weathercasting fits quite comfortably next to jazz, baseball, and ice cream cones. Weather presentations on TV are universal, of course, and the weather itself knows no geographic boundaries. However, the roots of weathercasting are firmly planted in a nation that’s populous, highly mobile, plugged into mass media, and blessed (or cursed) with hundreds of different climatic regimes, including some of the most violent weather on earth. Even as U.S. broadcast meteorologists have served as the target of innumerable jokes over the years about their accuracy—or presumed lack of it—they have also saved thousands of lives. Somehow, frivolity and serious information manage to coexist in the world of TV weather.