Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Johnny Diaz, At It Again

Our favorite Globe scribe has once again been astounded to discover, upon powering up his television of a morning, that there are women on it.

There’s a new weather pattern emerging in Boston: For the first time, all five of the meteorologists on Boston’s early-morning and midday newscasts are women. Stations have recruited and elevated more women from less-coveted weekend shifts to the highly competitive weekday morning race to deliver weather updates.


Oh my.

Moreover, these female weatherpersonesses -- these sheteorologists, if you will -- are closing the much-bemoaned Science Gender Gap.

Frank Colby, a meteorology professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, said, “What we are seeing is a trend toward women scientists,’’ he said. “To be a meteorologist, you need to be able to do math and science and this is like calculus and differential equations and apply it to the atmosphere and make sense out of it.’’


TV weather: It's so hard and sciencey. You really have to know stuff about using mathematical models to predict the behavior of complex and dynamic factors in the real world in order to stand in front of a map of the Eastern seaboard and point out the happy sun face over Hingham. Right, Stephen Colbert?

For those who have been sleeping in class and would like a refresher course on the women infesting Johnny Diaz's television, please refer to our March, 2009 tirade on Diaz's classic of the Women Do ____ genre, "The rise of the anchorwomen."

P.S. In an earlier version of this post, I missed the story and linked instead to the Globe's Weather Babes photo gallery. Forty lashes for me.