The Hidden Figures of Meteorology

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Hidden Figures of Meteorology"

Off the Radar
Host: Emily Gracie
Guest: Alan Seals
Release Date: February 18, 2025

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Introduction

In the episode titled "The Hidden Figures of Meteorology," Emily Gracie, a meteorologist with The National Weather Desk, delves into the often-overlooked contributions of African American meteorologists. Joining her is Alan Seals, a respected figure in Alabama's television meteorology scene, who shares his personal experiences and sheds light on the rich history of Black excellence in the field of meteorology.

Alan Seals: Breaking Barriers in Broadcast Meteorology

Alan Seals introduces himself as a veteran broadcast meteorologist who recently retired from WPMI TV in Mobile, Alabama, after a remarkable career spanning over two decades. Reflecting on his journey, Seals emphasizes the importance of diversity in meteorology. He states, "We serve diversity. We don't talk to a monolithic audience." (00:53)

Seals recounts his early fascination with weather phenomena, sparked by childhood observations of thundersnow and the intricate behavior of thermometers influenced by sunlight (04:43). This curiosity led him to pursue meteorology at Cornell University, where he faced the challenges of being one of the few African American students in a predominantly white program.

Overcoming Discrimination and Stereotypes

Seals shares poignant anecdotes highlighting the racial prejudices he encountered. One such incident occurred while fundraising for college, where a passerby doubted his enrollment at Cornell based on his appearance. "Someone who looks like you cannot possibly attend Cornell University," he recalls (07:08). This encounter underscored the implicit biases prevalent even in academic settings.

Despite these challenges, Seals remained steadfast, leveraging his education to fortify his credentials. "You educate yourself, you treat people the way you want to be treated, and you hope that you'll get that same treatment in return," he advises (11:45). His resilience not only propelled his career but also paved the way for future African American meteorologists.

The Rich History of African Americans in Meteorology

Seals provides an enlightening overview of the significant yet underrecognized contributions of African Americans to meteorology:

• Benjamin Banneker: Often celebrated for his work as a surveyor, Banneker also produced a weather almanac in the 1800s, making him one of the earliest African American weather forecasters (16:09).

• William Hallett Green: In the late 1800s, Green became the first African American to join the Army Signal Corps' weather office in Pensacola, Florida. Despite facing blatant racism, his expertise was eventually recognized and valued (22:19).

• Charles Anderson and Warren Washington: Pioneers who advanced the field further, with Washington becoming the first African American president of the American Meteorological Society before his passing in 2024 (24:22).

Seals also highlights the pivotal roles of institutions like Tuskegee University, known for both the Tuskegee Airmen and Dr. George Washington Carver's agricultural research, which inherently involved meticulous weather data collection. Additionally, Jackson State University and Howard University have been instrumental in nurturing African American talent in meteorology, contributing significantly to the diversity within the field (25:34).

The Imperative of Diversity in Meteorology

Drawing an analogy to a colorful salad, Seals passionately argues for the necessity of diversity: "The diversity of people truly is like a salad. The healthiest salad is one that has a lot of different ingredients, where each one contributes something different." (33:56). He explains that diverse perspectives enhance decision-making, particularly in meteorology where understanding varied community responses to weather emergencies is crucial.

Seals underscores that meteorologists serve a diverse population, and having professionals from varied backgrounds ensures more effective and empathetic communication. "If you're trying to make a decision, especially where human lives are involved, you want the widest amount of perspective..." (35:56).

Leadership and Future Goals as AMS President-Elect

As the President-Elect of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), Seals outlines his responsibilities and aspirations. His primary goal is to maintain organizational stability: "My first goal is to keep the train on the tracks and not let the ship sink." (36:34). He emphasizes the importance of collaboration, education, and maintaining global alliances to ensure comprehensive weather forecasting and data sharing.

Seals also touches on the evolving landscape of the weather enterprise, influenced by governmental changes and technological advancements. His leadership aims to foster an environment where education and public awareness about meteorology continue to thrive (38:09).

Current State and Progress of African Americans in Meteorology

Seals provides a candid assessment of the representation of African Americans in meteorology. Historically, African Americans have been significantly underrepresented, with AMS and National Weather Association memberships comprising only about 2-3% African American professionals in the 1990s. However, he notes a slow but positive trend towards increased diversity: "When you go to a conference, there are a dozen or a couple dozen African Americans. So the numbers are... they're going up slowly." (27:22).

He attributes the slow progress to historical systemic barriers rooted in slavery and institutional racism, which impeded educational and professional advancements for African Americans. Despite these challenges, institutions like Howard University and Jackson State University have been pivotal in fostering new generations of African American meteorologists (31:34).

Conclusion: Celebrating Black History as Integral American History

In wrapping up the discussion, Seals emphasizes that Black History Month encapsulates a vital component of American history: "It's everybody's history. It has a name of black history, but it's American history." (39:17). He advocates for the seamless integration of African American contributions into the broader narrative of American progress, ensuring that the legacy of pioneers in meteorology is recognized and celebrated.

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Notable Quotes:

• "We serve diversity. We don't talk to a monolithic audience." — Alan Seals (00:53)

• "Someone who looks like you cannot possibly attend Cornell University." — Alan Seals (07:08)

• "The diversity of people truly is like a salad. The healthiest salad is one that has a lot of different ingredients, where each one contributes something different." — Alan Seals (33:56)

• "My first goal is to keep the train on the tracks and not let the ship sink." — Alan Seals (36:34)

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This episode of Off the Radar serves as a compelling reminder of the invaluable contributions and enduring resilience of African American meteorologists. Alan Seals not only shares his personal journey but also illuminates the broader historical context, advocating for continued diversity and inclusion within the meteorological community.

Transcript

[Emily Gracie]

Every day, millions of Americans depend on meteorologists for life saving weather information. But an education and career in weather wasn't always open to everyone. The stories of pioneering African American meteorologists, brilliant minds who push through barriers of discrimination to advance our understanding of weather and climate, have often gone untold when severe weather threatens. Having diverse perspectives and experiences at the table isn't just about fairness. It's about saving lives. Different communities face different challenges during weather emergencies, and understanding these unique needs requires voices from all backgrounds in meteorology, from the universities conducting research, to the National Weather Service forecasters, to the local television meteorologists. Representation matters.

[Alan Seals]

We serve diversity. We don't talk to a monolithic audience.

[Emily Gracie]

We Today we're going off the Radar with Alan Seals, an Alabama TV icon who has spent decades not just forecasting the weather, but breaking down barriers himself.

[Alan Seals]

We had a little sign that said raising money for college, and a young white woman walked up and said, well, what college do you go to? And I said, cornell. And she said, no, you don't. And she turned around and walked away. She basically said, someone who looks like you cannot possibly attend Cornell University.

[Emily Gracie]

As a veteran broadcast meteorologist, educator, author, and now president elect of the American Meteorological Society, Ellen has been both a witness to and catalyst for change in our field.

[Alan Seals]

And Brian and I had a running joke at AMS conferences where whoever would see the other one first would say, oh, the other black guy is here. Because it literally was just the two of us.

[Emily Gracie]

From the first African American weather observers in the 1800s to today's leaders in atmospheric science, Ellen will help us uncover the hidden figures of black excellence in meteorology. These are stories of determination, scientific brilliance, and the relentless pursuit of knowledge. Stories that deserve to be part of everyday conversation about weather and climate science. I'm meteorologist Emily Gracie, and you're listening to off the Radar, a production of the National Weather Desktop. On the show, we dig deep into topics about weather, climate, the ocean, space, and much more. Our goal is to help you better understand the weather and to love it as much as we do.

[Alan Seals]

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[Emily Gracie]

Bombas are so absurdly comfortable, you may throw out all your other clothes. Sorry, do we legally have to say that? No, this is just how I talk. And I really love my Bombas.

[Alan Seals]

They do feel that good.

[Emily Gracie]

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[Alan Seals]

Same to you.

[Emily Gracie]

Very important day in our science. Thank you so much. Okay, so you and I worked together not too long ago, but you recently retired. Where did you retire from?

[Alan Seals]

So I retired my most recent position, which the retirement was just over a year ago. It was the NBC affiliate in Mobile, Alabama, WPMI tv. So I was there for about four years. And prior to that, I was at the CBS station in Mobile for 20 years. So I've been in Mobile for a quarter of a century.

[Emily Gracie]

You're still there now, I assume.

[Alan Seals]

Still there, yeah. It's a really good community. Quality of life is good, Neighbors are great, people are good, the seafood is good.

[Emily Gracie]

Okay, so I want to go back in time here and talk about your career a little bit. Can you give me a little insight into, like, childhood and what made you want to get into this field?

[Alan Seals]

So as a little kid, probably second grade, in my backyard, we had a slight hill, just enough so that on my sled I could slide down the hill. Go down the hill. And it was one evening where it was snowing lightly. I was in the backyard and I saw a flash of light and I heard muffled thunder. And it scared me but excited me at the same time because I couldn't figure out how it's possible you could have lightning and thunder during a snowstorm, which we know as thundersnow. So that just kind of simmered with me after that little things. Like one summer, I noticed my mom would always have me look out the window and read the thermometer before she went to work early in the morning. And the thermometer was on the north side of the house. And I noticed in the Summer that as soon as the sun rose and hit it, the temperature would jump up. And that just stuck with me as well. Just that the whole issue of instrument sighting, where you locate it, plays a big difference as to the data you get off the instrument. Third grade, though, is when I had a. A really interesting experience. We went outside third grade class. My teacher, Ms. Costello, took us outside. We laid in the grass and we looked up at the cumulus clouds, and we tried to imagine the shapes that the clouds reminded us of. While we were doing that, I started wondering, how is it possible a cloud could float? Because it's made of water. And to this day, I am amazed at the fact that you can get a cloud float over your house, drop an inch of rain, 30 minutes later, the cloud is gone. There's no sign that it ever existed. And it's just a natural part of the Earth. And we know it's about the molecular weight of H2O versus nitrogen or oxygen and a slight updraft. But still, it amazes me to this day that clouds float and could generate so much active weather. For me, growing up, it was never a question of would you go to college, it was, what are you going to study when you get there? And I was fortunate enough to make that connection of weather communication because I've always been a natural ham and science and community service. And so from 11th grade on, I said, oh, TV weather, this, this will be the perfect career for me.

[Emily Gracie]

Interesting. So you had like, that inquisitive science brain, even from a very young age, and then throw in your hamminess and then you've got like that TV version. But how did you, like, know that this was a career? I hear so many, so many people say. I didn't know, like, meteorology was even a career. And certainly TV meteorology. And that was kind of at a time where not everybody on TV was a meteorologist too.

[Alan Seals]

Right, right. Very few. This we're talking. I graduated high school in the early 80s, so, yeah, through the 70s, it was mostly weather men, literally men. And growing up in New York in the 70s, I don't know that there was a degreed meteorologist on tv. What, what worked in my favor is that my dad actually worked at CBS News behind the scenes. So growing up, I was exposed to the, the concept of a TV news outlet, a TV news station. I got to meet Walter Cronkite when I was a kid, Harry Reasoner, Andy Rooney, all these people who are historic figures in journalism. But as a little kid, to me, they were just Old guys, I had no idea really what. What relevance they had to. To life. But what was to me really interesting is even though my parents always had the evening news on, they always had news radio on. We subscribed to the daily newspaper. I never had any interest in watching TV weather. And even through high school, I still did watch it. But I knew it was something I wanted to do. And from that point, I went straight ahead and ended up getting into Cornell, majored in meteorology, minored in communications, minored in partying and having fun. Had the best time of my life. I had such a good time that my grades actually went downhill. They suffered. I learned a lot about myself. And then because I knew that my meteorology foundation wasn't that strong, I ended up applying for grad school and got into Florida State.

[Emily Gracie]

So tell me about your department at Cornell. I'm curious about the demographic makeup of your. Know, what mine was like in 1999, so I'm curious what yours was like.

[Alan Seals]

All right, so we're talking the early 80s. First of all, Cornell's meteorology program is small. Was and still is fairly small at that time.

[Emily Gracie]

So, like, how many people in your graduating class?

[Alan Seals]

Probably four. Oh, yeah, Four or five. So it was really small. Boy, it may have only been one white woman, and the rest were white men, except for me and John Tuohy Morales. John was one year ahead of me.

[Emily Gracie]

Oh, really? Wow. I didn't know that.

[Alan Seals]

Yeah, very cool. So, yeah, it was. It was what I expected going into the profession, doing the research. I knew that it was a field dominated by white men, which didn't deter me because I'm a weather geek and I like weather and I like people. And most of the time people treat you the way you treat them. And that's. I've always lived. There was nothing negative or antagonistic toward me in the department, but I didn't have the comfort of having people like me around me.

[Emily Gracie]

Tell me about the kind of culture shock going from growing up in New York and then now you're in Mobile, Alabama. What is that like? And then how did the audience treat you? What was that sort of situation like?

[Alan Seals]

So I had been in the south before. I learned pretty quickly that New York City is like an aberration to. To reality. There's. This is not ego, but there's no other place like it. When you look at history, culture, diversity, density, population density, all of that. So I. I quickly learned that there are so many other places where, for example, Mobile, where the pace is a lot slower. People Are they have time and the willingness to talk to strangers, which in a big city, not just New York, it's you. You avoid that for personal safety oftentimes. My first job out of FSU was actually Albany, Georgia. Not Albany, but Al Benny, which is how they pronounce it. And that was 1987. So I was in Albany, Georgia for a year. I really loved it. Great community. I was the first black meteorologist on TV there. The people were genuine. That's how I've always gone through my career.

[Emily Gracie]

Okay, so it sounds like you have a very pleasant experience, kind of going through college, growing up and in your career, were there any moments that weren't as pleasant that you had to overcome barriers or that people didn't treat you well?

[Alan Seals]

Fortunately, for most of my academic and professional journey, as far as I can see, I did not have any stereotypical blatant, you don't belong here sort of things. Now, they may have happened behind my back and I didn't notice it. I'm also, as a New Yorker, you have to be cocky and you have to be confident. So I've always approached things as though I belong here just as much as you do. And part of the reason I went to graduate school is to get that extra training so that my credentials could never be questioned, which also is my philosophy of life. You educate yourself, you treat people the way you want to be treated, and you hope that you'll get that same treatment in return. I can say, though, there are a lot of little incidents, mostly outside of the job. So even when I was at Cornell, I remember there was one Christmas, a friend, Brian, and I, we both played trumpet. We were playing Christmas Carols, a duet in midtown Manhattan. We had a little sign that said, raising money for college. And a young white woman walked up and said, well, what college do you go to? And I said, cornell. And she said, no, you don't. And she turned around and walked away. And that every time I think about that, it just gets my blood pressure up that she basically said, someone who looks like you cannot possibly attend Cornell University. My first reaction was to run after her and literally show her my college id. And I thought about it later, and I was in too much of a shock to respond. But the question is, why should I have to prove to you that I'm worthy? And I would love to know where that woman ended up in life to see what her mindset is, if she evolved from that backward stereotypical thinking. Similarly, there were a couple of funny incidents. I was a RA resident hall Advisor for the summer program at Cornell. I remember there's a couple who were. They were bringing their son in to set up his. His dorm room. I heard the husband say to the wife, referring to me, he said, I bet you didn't expect to see many of them here. And the wife said, yeah, but that's good for our son. So they weren't tearing me down. They were just stating statistics of the time that there were not, and even now still is, not a large number of African American or black students at Cornell. I can tell you this. For those of us on tv, the most feedback we get, the most negative feedback we get is for interrupting the program for severe weather. And in doing so, when I look back at the comments I've gotten, that's when the viewers express their racism. They pick on you in any way that you're different from them, and they use that to try to tear you down. And through my career, fortunately, it's been maybe a couple dozen times that a viewer has directly referenced my skin color, my ethnicity, my race, if you want to call it that. But fortunately, within coworkers and management, it has not been a negative issue. I've had managers stand up for me when viewers have emailed the whole station saying something racist and insensitive.

[Emily Gracie]

So, I mean, I think you've been very fortunate and partially because of the people who've come before you. You know, you've had this list of just extensive lists of people who have come before you and paved the way. And you're very knowledgeable on these folks. And so I want to, I want to teach us a little. You're a teacher. I want to, I want you to teach us a little bit about the black history of meteorology and the African Americans that came before us and have done amazing things. And I watched your YouTube video about this and I learned a lot of new things there. There's like the names that we know, you know, we know like George Washington Carver and June Bacon Bursy, Warren Washington. But there were some new names to the list. And I was wondering if you could kind of name drop some lesser known heroes of the past in our field.

[Alan Seals]

Yeah. Okay. And the piece that you're referring to is something I put together last year. I still teach Intro to TV weather at the University of South Alabama, which I've been. This is my silver anniversary, 25 years of teaching that course.

[Emily Gracie]

Wow.

[Alan Seals]

And I have right now three students on air in Mobile, three of my former students, and then a couple several dozen around the country. In any event, I did a presentation last June entitled From Juneteenth to the Sky, A History of African Americans in Meteorology. And it just. It just organically came together. It's not something that I ever really thought a whole bunch about until last year when we were looking at similar to what we're looking at this year. A lot of talk from some corners about how DEI is negative. Certain people get opportunities because of their skin color and certain people don't. So I just wanted to lay out just some basic facts, things that I knew literally half of what I presented. And then as I was researching, I found the other half. Benjamin Banneker, he had a weather almanac. And this was about the same time that the old Farmers Almanac came out, which apparently back then that was really popular. He didn't have tv, electricity. People read books, and there were science people who put together an almanac for the year, projecting mostly it was about astronomy, it was about growing seasons. But Benjamin Banneker's book also included weather, just as the old Farmers Almanac still does. Now, I don't know the basis or the accuracy, but I didn't know that until I went to the Smithsonian Museum of African American History. I knew of Benjamin Banneker being a surveyor that helped with the layout of Washington, D.C. but as I was in the. In the Smithsonian, looking at the. The almanac for the first time, I noticed there were little entries for weather in the almanac. So he was one of the first known African American weather forecasters, if you want to use that phrase. And going back to the 1800s, as I was researching more and more, I ran across this phrase, weather prophet, and that's profit, as in someone who prophesizes or forecasts the weather. But what I found was interesting in a lot of the popular newspapers is the. The African Americans recently, many recently emancipated. They were given credit in mainstream newspapers, which tells me that the value of their prophesizing was good enough that it was worth publishing in a paper.

[Emily Gracie]

It was really interesting to me, the part that you were talking about with the enslaved people being so much more knowledgeable on weather because of the amount of time they spent outside and in the fields. And it, like, it kind of made me really think about it and how important that is in weather education, too. Stepping outside and actually experiencing the weather.

[Alan Seals]

Right, right. And not all slaves worked outside, but many did. And if you did, you had to build a model in your mind of this happens at this time of the day. Therefore, this follows. I do know in the historic Record. African Americans were actually prized for knowledge of growing certain crops back in Africa. So they were familiar with whether it was greens. Some may have been more familiar with whether it was cotton or related plant. So it, it wouldn't surprise me if there was at least a perception that they were knowledgeable about the science of weather. Whether it was true or not, it wouldn't surprise me. I do know that my, my great grandmother talked about her father who was born in 1852, and she never, she didn't use the phrase weather prophet, but she did say that people would go to him to learn about the weather. So to me, that was pretty cool. And I'm doing my family genealogy now, trying to figure out what I can find. So 1800s, the end of slavery in the United States, the word meteorologist wasn't used. But the first African American man to join what was the precursor to the National Weather Service. At the time, it was the Army Signal Corps, William Hallett Green. He was assigned to the weather office in Pensacola, Florida. And to me, that was like, wow, right here on the Gulf Coast. The first African American. He was a graduate of what at the time I think was the City University of New York. He graduated at a young age. He was a really sharp student by all accounts. He was assigned to Pensacola. And literally the day he got to Pensacola, the chief of that office said in so many words, don't send him here. He's black. Nobody wants a black person to come to Pensacola. If he comes here, we, the Weather Bureau or the Army Corps, Signal Corps, we will become the butt of ridicule. That's how he phrased it. And what was so fascinating to me, other than the fact that this actually occurred, is his letter up and down the chain of command. All of it is preserved and it's online. And so I have a copy of that and you can read it. And it's, it's very blunt and it, it, it says exactly that, that a colored person would not be accepted at a hotel in Pensacola. Fortunately, he was backed up by the army chain of command. The Secretary of War at the time was Secretary Lincoln, who was one of the sons of Abraham Lincoln. And the Secretary of War put out a statement saying that in a sense, no person can be discriminated on based on their skin color within the Army Signal Corps. The sergeant, the head of that office I mentioned in Pensacola, he was on track to be court martialed, but he had a little political pull, so they ended up demoting him and he ended up leaving the office. And then William Hallett Green became the first office chief of the Signal Corps in the Army. 1884, late 1800s. Tuskegee University is well known for the.

[Emily Gracie]

Tuskegee Airmen, the weather observers, right?

[Alan Seals]

Well, yeah, it's known also for Dr. George Washington Carver. I didn't know that. Dr. George Washington Carver was what we now call a cooperative weather observer. We know he was a farmer. He was heavily into agricultural research. And it's logical now that if you're going to do heavy duty research into agriculture, you have to keep meticulous weather records. Yeah, and he did. And he did that for 30 years. He was the weather observer for Tuskegee, Alabama. Also later in Tuskegee, as I mentioned, the Tuskegee Airmen, it didn't hit me that for them to fly, they needed weather briefings. So at that same time in World War II, where the Tuskegee Institute was supporting that detachment of airmen who would later serve In World War II, there was a weather detachment started for those airmen. So During World War II, there was a concerted effort, and this is where DEI comes into play. There was a concerted effort. First of all, World War II made it really clear to the United States that we can't win the war if we don't bring in women and if we don't bring in African Americans and other non white men. So that was a major push for removing segregation within the armed forces. I believe the first graduate, the first man recognized as getting a meteorology degree in the United States was Wallace Pattillo Reed. This would have been the early 1940s. He became the commander of the Tuskegee Weather Detachment. So they trained other meteorologists to become pretty much aviation meteorologists within the Tuskegee Weather Detachment. One of the Tuskegee Weather detachment men was Dr. Charles Anderson. He was the first African American to get a PhD in meteorology. And that was in 1960.

[Emily Gracie]

I thought Warren Washington was the first. He wasn't.

[Alan Seals]

No, Warren Washington was second. Oh, so Charles was 1960. Warren Washington was a few years after that. But then, of course, Warren Washington went on to a huge career as a climate scientist, as a mentor, as a modeler, as the first African American president of the American Meteorological Society. We. He passed away last year. But yeah, that's just a tiny part of all the. To me, the awesome things I did not know until last year, and had I known them as an undergraduate student, I probably would have been a much better student. Just knowing, really just knowing that there was that much history behind where I was and where I would end up. Going, right?

[Emily Gracie]

Yeah. You would have said, don't mess around, Alan. Get to work.

[Alan Seals]

Right. Yeah.

[Emily Gracie]

Okay. You brought up Tuskegee, but I want to fast forward a little bit in time and talk about the role that Howard University played in diversifying the field a little bit more. Can you tell me about that program when that started and just like the impact that it had on the community?

[Alan Seals]

Oh, yeah. So when I applied for college around 1980, there, there was no meteorology program at Howard University. There was no historically black college and university. Similarly, Jackson State University, I think they started in 1975. Yes, they did. They're coming up on their 50th anniversary. But I didn't know about it because there was no Internet and I didn't have any connection with any African American meteorologists. Jackson State, which is in Jackson, Mississippi, estimates that out of all bachelor's degrees in meteorology, that they have conferred maybe a third of them. So one college has conferred, and we're talking for African Americans. One historically black college and university has conferred about a third of the undergraduate degrees for African American meteorologists. It remains an undergraduate program. So Howard University has a graduate program in atmospheric sciences. And for people who don't know, meteorology and atmospheric sciences is basically the same thing. It's just. It's how you want to call it. So Howard has produced, when it comes to African American PhDs, has also done a similar 30 to 40%, if not more of PhDs in meteorology. So it has been a tremendous pipeline. And so many of these folks are high up within noaa, within private industry, and even things like that I did not know about until a couple of decades ago. They were there, but they were sort of hidden away.

[Emily Gracie]

I was wondering if you could give me some stats on, like, the field, where it stands now, so informally.

[Alan Seals]

And I'm going to make a detour and hopefully I can come back to your answer. I first was able to go to AMS American Meteorological Society conferences in the 1990s. Same thing with National Weather Association. And when you look at both of those organizations, their membership, even the latest data, has maybe 2%, maybe 3% African Americans. So within the geosciences were underrepresented when I would first go to the conferences. I remember the NWA conference in the 90s. There was one conference where I was. I spoke as I like to speak at conferences and share stuff. And I spoke. And as I stood up and looked around the audience, I realized that I was the only professional African American male at the conference. There were students there from Jackson State, both male and female. But early in my career in the 90s, it was so common for me to be the only African American person or male at a conference. AMS conferences. Fortunately, what. What made it, I guess, more comfortable for me, not that that was uncomfortable, but what made it more comfortable is seeing people like Brian Busby, Yolanda Amadeo, Janice Huff, people who are dear lifelong friends, who. They're all still doing this broadcast TV thing and doing it very well. And Brian and I had a running joke at AMS conferences where whoever would see the other one first would say, oh, the other black guy's here. Because it literally was just the two of us. So now I'm happy to say, as you can see, when you go to a conference, there are a dozen or a couple dozen African Americans. So the numbers are. They're going up slowly. So take that and move ahead back to the original question of statistics. As I was doing my research, I mentioned black PhDs Charles Anderson, Warren Washington, Lonzi Lewis, I believe at Jackson State. He may have been the third African American to get a PhD. Tom Carney @ Florida State. He passed away. He may have been the fourth or fifth. And that was, by the 1980s, to my knowledge, the first African American woman to get a PhD in meteorology, Denise Stevenson Hawk. That was also in the mid-1980s. So up until the mid-1980s, there were no more than half a dozen black PhDs in meteorology in the United States. As I did this research, then it hit me, well, but then you had people, Africans, who came to the US and got their degree in meteorology and may have stayed or didn't stay. So it gets a little muddy because we all define ourselves differently and sometimes people try to force us into a box that really is not who we are. So I focused in all of my studies on or research on people who consider themselves African American, who could have been descendants of slaves in the United States or even within the Caribbean, just to show the progress. So from the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, as I started to network more with people like Marshall Shepard and. And learn more about his sector of meteorology as an academic and former government employee. But a PhD, and we would count the numbers of black PhDs into the early 1990s, it was no more than a couple dozen, thanks to Howard University. In large part, the latest estimate is it's at least 60, if not 70 African American PhDs in meteorology, and then a whole lot more who, as I mentioned, are African who return to Africa or now work in other countries. And then of course, from the Caribbean, who may also work in their home countries. So slowly the numbers are going up. It's slow, but they're going in the right direction.

[Emily Gracie]

Do you have any idea why? I mean, have you ever kind of tried to figure out why?

[Alan Seals]

People may debate it, but the historical basis is in the fact that African Americans were enslaved. And if you look at the history of our country and you look at families who have been in the country for many years, think I look at it as like a relay race. Early on in the race, a lot of families started earlier. While African American families were held back, they literally could not start the race until 1865. And then through laws and so forth. The race for many didn't really start until the mid-1960s, once all the amendments to the Constitution were ratified. So we started behind. Even though we had legal rights, we still did not have enforced legal rights. And there were still so many racist practices that kept people in a certain neighborhood or only provided a certain number of amount of resources to certain zip codes, and then things that are well documented, like covenants within neighborhoods to not sell your home to an African American. So all of that is what has slowed us down in all progress. And from that, I think just the stereotype that slavery created, that if you're African American, you're inferior intellectually inferior. Back to what I mentioned about William Hallett Green in Pensacola, the sergeant of the office who immediately said he shouldn't be there. He never said, I don't want this black man to be here. He said, the people would say that we are not making a good decision. So he was using racism as a community thing, not directly as his own opinion. And I think that's been a part of it where people in the position to advance African Americans and other racial minorities and women for that matter, would say, oh, well, I'm not racist, but the people around me don't want that type of person here. And that has justified a lot of the prejudices that still exist.

[Emily Gracie]

Can you tell me why it's important to have diversity in the field of meteorology?

[Alan Seals]

Oh, yeah, without a doubt. My wife has gotten me to eat more salads. In the old days, I would eat just iceberg lettuce. I put salad dressing on it. And she got me to see the logic behind. Your salad needs to have color. You need to have something green, something yellow, something red, something orange. And each of those other vegetables and sometimes fruit bring another set of nutrients to your meal. If you only eat Green salad. You're missing out on a lot of vitamins that you need. So the diversity of people truly is like a salad. The healthiest salad is one that has a lot of different ingredients, where each one contributes something different. For any organization, diversity brings diversity of perspective. And diversity can be age, it can be height, it can be gender, it can be ethnicity, it can be religion, it can be educational achievement. All of that is what makes a better decision. I don't care what the question is. If you're trying to make a decision, especially where human lives are involved, you want the widest amount of perspective, not just people who think like you, grew up in your neighborhood, look like you and are the exact same age. So that's where diversity is critical. The other place where it's critical is we weather forecasters. We serve diversity. We don't talk to a monolithic audience. No one in the weather profession has a client or a user that is, that is generically the exact same. So you have to understand who you're talking to, how they interpret the science typically that you're trying to impart. And the only way to do that is to have people around you who can help you see that certain words may have different meanings in other communities. Sometimes funny, sometimes dangerous.

[Emily Gracie]

Okay, well, that segues into my next question, which you know, you have taken on this new role. You are the American Meteorological Society's President elect, which means in 2026, you'll be the President. You mentioned that you are not the first African American male to have this position. But surely something that's hasn't been a super diverse position in the past. I would love to hear, first of all, what the President does, like what day to day stuff looks like. And then also what your goals are for 2026. Anything you want to do new and different with the society.

[Alan Seals]

Yeah, so I joke about it, but it's true. My first goal is to keep the train on the tracks and not let the ship sink.

[Emily Gracie]

That's a good call.

[Alan Seals]

That is goal number one. The ams, like so many organizations, has a long history. They have an awesome staff, paid employees who keep the consistency year to year and decade to decade. I don't have any plans to make any dramatic changes, not that I could. And it's important to know because people have asked and will ask, well, why doesn't the AMS do this? Why can't you make them do this? So the AMS is structured where the President actually answers to the Council, which is similar to the way the United States government is Set up on paper where you don't have unilateral control over any decision. It has to be voted on by the council and then it has to be approved. We have attorneys who have to read over documents to make sure that everything is legal within our constitution and our bylaws. It's no secret that right now our government administration is changing everything or trying to change everything, which will have huge ripple effects, could have huge ripple effects on the weather enterprise, which most people think of as noaa, the National Weather Service. But you've got all these other. You have universities, you have private industry, of course, TV weather broadcasting. All of it is intertwined into what we call the weather enterprise. So depending on what happens in the next week, month, year, I'm not sure what I'll be doing differently.

[Emily Gracie]

Putting out flames.

[Alan Seals]

It's possible.

[Emily Gracie]

TV interviews, that's what you're going to be doing.

[Alan Seals]

At the same time, part of your original question, what does the president do on a day to day basis? It really is. You're running an organization that has a budget, it has committees, maintaining alliances with other meteorological societies in other countries. Because as we know, weather is global. It truly is. You have to share that data and share best practices so that all of us can benefit. Because you don't want something, literally, you don't want a storm coming in that you have no knowledge of until it hits your border. So that, that's a big part of what we do. But certainly the society is all about education for the general public, education for the membership. That's what I'm going to be working on, is trying to make sure everyone is as smart and as healthy as they can be. And the organization is as healthy as it can be.

[Emily Gracie]

Awesome. Alan, is there anything else you want to share about your career or about Black History Month?

[Alan Seals]

Weather broadcasting is still a healthy profession, even though it may not be on a big screen tv. Now it's on a small screen tv, but it is still there. It is still critical to serve your community, to give people information that helps them be safer and smarter. With regard to Black History Month, it's everybody's history. It has a name of black history, but it's American history. In our case, it's just from my experience, it's not as well integrated into the full story that we learn as kids, but everybody's history is important and together we're all going forward.

[Emily Gracie]

Alan Seals, thank you so much for your time today and for teaching us all of your knowledge.

[Alan Seals]

You are welcome, very welcome.

[Emily Gracie]

Off the radar is a production of the National Weather Desk. Make sure you're following the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. New episodes publish every Tuesday. Also, off the Radar is now on Instagram, so make sure you give us a follow so you can see snippets from the show as well as some other great weather content. Thank you to Alan Seals for joining me on the show today and sharing his expertise. Thank you to the National Weather Desk and Sinclair Broadcast Group for their ongoing support of the podcast, as well as my associate producer Brian Petrus. I'm meteorologist Emily Gracie. Make it a great day.