For those who’ve watched a lot of weather, you may have already noticed, but it’s time I shared the two different cliques of weatherman. Similar to the jocks and nerds of high school, we too come in two varieties: Forecasters and Broadcasters.

The Forecasters are the ‘nerds’ of weather. They’re usually very intelligent. They study weather day and night, live, eat, and breathe weather. They are extremely good at forecasting the weather and spend hours meticulously reading charts, graphs, and miles of statistics to get the forecast just right. The downside, they’re usually either homely or just plain horrible on camera. These are the people that typically put you to sleep when you watch their monotone weather reporters. Or, confuse you as they drone on about the details about the subtropical jet stream and vorticity maximums (stuff that nobody cares about).

Broadcasters, on the other hand, are the ‘jocks’ of weather. They are usually both good-looking and/or suave on camera. They are typically much more popular than ‘Forecasters’ because they’re interesting and understandable, hence more can relate to them when watching. Unfortunately, most are poor forecasters. They’re more worried about looking/talking good on camera rather than getting the forecast right. They typically have no education in meteorology or just plain don’t care. Because they’re so loved, they can typically get away with the sub-par forecasting (at least for a while).

There’s also an implied third category, which is directly in the center of these two. They’re well balanced in both forecasting and broadcasting on air. They’re a rare breed, (like a jocky nerd in high school), so there’s really not a clique for them. However these are the one that you see on-air for 30+ years because they’re so good at what they do...(like Jim Gandy, right?)...

Everyone has his or her own opinion as to which weatherperson falls into which category. Usually, everyone starts out on one side and strives to work as close to the middle as possible. Me? Well, I’ve been a proud ‘nerd’ for quite sometime. But, maybe one day the weather jocks will invite me to their cool parties...nah...