• President's Message: Recognizing Women's History Month
• Annual Meeting FAQs
• Submit Your Nominations for the 2021 Annual Awards
• So, You Want to Quantify Weather Curiosity? There’s a Questionnaire for That! (Matt Bolton)
• NWA Event Calendar
  
• Participate in #SafePlaceSelfie Day on April 7
• NWAF Pike and Phillips Scholarship Recipients
• Apply to the Meteorological Satellite Applications Award Grant by March 25, 2021
• March Webinar - 3/18 - 12 p.m. ET
• Distant Social dates
• New Job Postings

President's Message
NWA President Nate Johnson

For the first time in our country’s history, a woman is vice president of the United States. A record number of women are serving in Congress (including a record number of Republican women), and President Biden’s cabinet slate, should it be fully approved, would see a record number of women appointed to cabinet-level positions.

While we have not had a female president — yet — it is undeniable: There is a lot of broken glass. And why shouldn’t there be? According to the Census Bureau, our country is more than 50% female.

But are we seeing that broken glass in the weather enterprise? I want to use the president’s message this Women’s History Month to see how we’re doing in our field. Unfortunately, the raw numbers suggest we have work to do, but there are some positive stories beyond the topline figures.

Let’s start with the numbers in our own house. At last check, women made up 22% of the NWA’s membership as well as 22% of the TV, Radio, and Digital Seal Holders. We have a female CEO — the first in our history — and five out of the 13 (38%) Directors on our Board are women.

These figures, while falling short of the fraction of women in the US population, are consistent with the rest of the enterprise. For example¹:

- Women make up a little more than 22% of the NWS workforce, including the deputy director and the chief of staff (Katie Collins Garrett, personal communication)

- Cranford 2018 found women made up 29% of broadcast weather positions at the time of that study; both that study and Green et al. 2019 showed fewer women in “chief” or weekday evening roles as well as fewer women than men in the broadcast weather industry with four-year degrees

- MacPhee and Cannetto 2015 found that only 17% of tenure-track faculty positions in the atmospheric sciences were held by women

Some of this is a pipeline issue. There are myriad programs to encourage girls and young women to consider science careers. These programs take time, and we might be seeing some early signs of success. For example, while MacPhee and Cannetto found only 17% of faculty were women, that figure was more than double — 39% — when they looked at graduate students.

Representation is an important component. Some of the most visible scientists in our society are our colleagues in broadcast weather, and you are more likely to find a woman with a degree, certification, or seal giving you a weather forecast today than in the past. Cranford’s findings were a modest improvement over previous studies, showing women making up 25% or less of the broadcast weather industry. Eight of the last 20 people — 40% — to earn an NWA Seal were women. Leadership is also high-visibility. Next year, we will have a woman as president of the NWA for the fifth time in our history.

Support and retention are also key, and there are a variety of initiatives across the enterprise to that end. The NWS has a team looking into retention, including looking at why women leave the agency and what changes could be made to encourage them to stay. Many private employers (including my own) have employee groups that both provide support for employees and serve as a resource for management when making decisions that affect those employees. Both the NWA and AMS have standing groups focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion issues, and both organizations host luncheons and other events at their annual meeting for support, mentoring, and sharing resources and encouragement.

In summary, we still have some work to do. (And this brief look does not take into account other critical issues, such as equal pay!) Fortunately, the trends continue to be positive, and there are good initiatives to help keep them that way! Individually, the best way to contribute is to learn how to identify and work against gender bias in our personal and professional relationships as well as in our institutional hiring, admissions, and promotion practices. This and other steps will help ensure we see broader participation by women in our enterprise.

¹Statistics from the private sector were not available at the time of publication.

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Annual Meeting FAQs

Submit Your Nominations for the 2021 Annual Awards

Submit a nomination.

More information on the NWA Annual Awards Program.

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So, You Want to Quantify Weather Curiosity? There’s a Questionnaire for That!
Dylan R. Allen, How The Weatherworks, Naples, Florida
Matthew J. Bolton, Lara K. Ault, and Keith Burton, College of Arts and Sciences, Saint Leo University, Saint Leo, Florida

Meteorologists are active in environments where they are likely to encounter weather-interested individuals. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has limited in-person interactions and traditional school talks, TV station tours, and other public outreach efforts in the interest of public health, weather education continues in 2021. With an eye towards the future of weather education, we sought to design a short, easily-administered, and self-reported questionnaire of weather curiosity which could enable meteorologists a window into just how interested people are in weather.

The aptly-named Epistemic Weather Curiosity Questionnaire measures the degree to which individuals agree with 11 statements signifying their general interest in learning about weather, and their curiosity for the meteorology behind weather processes. While further research is needed to determine stability and the feasibility of establishing curiosity thresholds, two initial validation studies found the questionnaire internally reliable.

It measures an information-based curiosity for weather that is associated with analytical thinking, two types of curiosity, psychological attention to weather, weather warning awareness, and beliefs about one’s ability to prepare for severe weather. The questionnaire is also predictive of active engagement with weather information, and of negative emotionality for those interested in weather but induced to imagine they could no longer engage with weather information.

The latter finding suggests usefulness in certain mental health and well-being contexts. Those interested in using the scale are free to do so and can contact us with questions. The items are reproduced in the table from Bolton et al. (2021).

Author note: Correspondence concerning this article should addressed to Matthew Bolton, College of Arts and Sciences, Saint Leo University, Saint Leo, FL. Email: [email protected]
Reference
Bolton, M. J., L. K. Ault, K. Burton, D. R. Allen, and H. M. Mogil, 2021: Measuring epistemic weather curiosity: Initial validation of a self-report, individual difference questionnaire. Preprint. PsyArxiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/pv6ar

Epistemic Weather Curiosity Questionnaire
Number in parenthesis indicates factor

• I would be interested in weather-related science experiments (e.g., creating a cloud in a bottle). (1)
• I am curious about why the weather changes. (1)
• I want to know what causes tornadoes. (1)
• I would like to learn about high and low pressure systems. (1)
• I like when meteorologists on TV talk about the science behind weather. (1)
• It would be interesting to see a weather balloon launch. (1)
• I like to watch TV news reports about weather. (2)
• I feel drawn to learning about weather. (2)
• Weather easily captures my attention. (2)
• I like to search for answers to questions about weather. (2)
• I have some interest in learning how to read computer weather models. (2)

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