Weather forecasting on television is moving away from comedy and happy talk, and toward a trend of meteorologists with credentials providing that popular information, according to Valerie Voss, CNN senior meteorologist, in her talk, "Meteorology for a Mass Audience," Sept. 23 in Goldwin Smith Hall Auditorium D.
"In the past, television weather used to be beauty queens and clowns, but I think this is changing," said Voss, who joined CNN 11 years ago. Voss was recently elected a fellow of the American Meteorology Society and was awarded earlier this year with the AMS's Certified Consulting Meteorologist designation.
Voss spoke to the students in the Science of Earth Systems Colloquium taught
by Charles H. Greene, Cornell associate professor of geological sciences and
director
of the Oceans Resources Ecosystems Program at the Cornell Center for the
Environment. He also is an adjunct associate professor of ecology and systematics. For
the class, it was the third in a series of
lectures on "Climate, Weather and Society."
CNN viewer research shows that weather is the number one reason people watch the news, and it is the only segment that viewers do not surf through. In rankings of importance, weather places second behind medical news on the network.
Weather news on CNN is beamed to 240 countries. Behind the cameras, a team of experienced meteorologists assemble the daily forecasts and Voss showed the students a tape from behind the scenes at CNN weather.
While working for the network, Voss provides input to help make the
National Weather Service more modern and to enhance its position as the backbone for
weather information here. Four years ago, the U.S.
Department of Commerce, the department in which the National Weather Service
is housed, appointed her to the service's Modernization Transition Committee.
Other trends Voss sees in the future of broadcasting weather information are rapid updates. "Information is not going to be linear," she said. "The latest information is going to be the most important thing."
The weather broadcaster will likely cover a broader area of information as broadcasters provide more information on El Nino, global warming, drought conditions, hydrometeorology and "more applied meteorology than we did five years ago," she said.
Thanks to the Internet and the World Wide Web, many more people are informed, she said.
"The viewing public is more sophisticated than even 10 years ago," Voss said. "They've seen more and they know how to process all this information."