Episode 55: Haters Gonna Hate: Defending Meteorology and Forecasting

You know, as a meteorologist, did you know you can be right half the time but still have a job. The amount of times we all hear that, am I right? There's no doubt public perception of weather and weather forecasting isn't always great. And with many meteorologists and forecasters in the spotlight, the hate messages can be downright hurtful, and that can take a terrible mental toll on those who work so hard to predict the weather. But, many on-air personalities have had enough, and they're fighting back.

That was meteorologist James Spann at ABC 33/40 in Birmingham, Alabama. He reads mean tweets sent in by listeners. And in this case, his viewers are complaining about his winter weather forecast earlier this year.

He's not the only one. Meteorologist Heather Waldman from WGRZ in Buffalo, New York is also defending forecasting, using a more educational approach.

More and more meteorology professionals are taking to social media and the airwaves to fight back against haters and trollers. And we examine that on this week's episode of WeatherHype.

Audio samples courtesy of WBMA-TV/James Spann & WGRZ-TV/Heather Waldman.

Modifications were made for the Introduction and transition music "Baby, I'm Bad Weather" by Toussaint Morrison: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ and "Massive Attack"  and "Hot Chip" by Podington Bear: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/