Tomorrow's forecast is the same, but purple.

December 5, 2015 12:49 PM

Why are all these meteorologists wearing the same dress?
posted by Faint of Butt (56 comments total)

That's hilarious...
posted by HuronBob at 12:55 PM on December 5, 2015

And of course none of them are green, or else this would happen.
posted by Rangi at 12:58 PM on December 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

"Great dress!"
"Thanks! It has POCKETS! And it's not chromakey!"
posted by a halcyon day at 1:03 PM on December 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

Angela Fritz on Capital Weather Gang has a more in-depth explanation: the viral dress says a lot about what it's like to be a female tv meterologist.
posted by LobsterMitten at 1:06 PM on December 5, 2015 [39 favorites]

And because every topic needs a thinkpiece: "This ‘viral dress’ actually says a lot about what it’s like to be a female TV meteorologist."
posted by zachlipton at 1:07 PM on December 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

What colour is that dress?
posted by infini at 1:07 PM on December 5, 2015 [4 favorites]

Great dress, until you realize you're wearing it for your first away team mission.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 1:08 PM on December 5, 2015 [26 favorites]

This was on NPR the other day. Now I know what it looks like. The upshot of the story was that TV meteorologists have to provide their own wardrobes and this dress is a bargain.
posted by Bee'sWing at 1:10 PM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I want that damn dress, it is so effortlessly flattering

I don't even wear dresses
posted by poffin boffin at 1:13 PM on December 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

Great dress, until you realize you're wearing it for your first away team mission.

Yeah, but why aren’t they all blue?
posted by D.C. at 1:15 PM on December 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

I hadn't realized, until reading the various "Yes, they all have this dress, because sexism" responses that tv-news people had to provide their own wardrobes. That seems unfair to me, though I guess most of us have to provide our own wardrobes, too.
posted by jaguar at 1:32 PM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Most of us don't get letters from slovenly members of the public critiquing what we wear to work.
posted by zachlipton at 1:39 PM on December 5, 2015 [15 favorites]

Yeah, I think that's why it feels unfair to me. Though I'm not sure professional wardrobing would stop the public critiques.
posted by jaguar at 1:42 PM on December 5, 2015

Michael Fish had to provide his own duds, and it didn't stop him from being an effortless style icon.
posted by sobarel at 1:52 PM on December 5, 2015 [11 favorites]

The most surprising part to me was how small-market TV meteorologists can expect to make only $25k.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:14 PM on December 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

So now they've finally found the magic dress that does it all and is cheap, and they get ridiculed all over the internet for wearing the same dress.
posted by Omnomnom at 2:17 PM on December 5, 2015 [10 favorites]

Look at those compilation pictures long enough, and it starts to feel like I'm looking at Star Trek uniforms.

Ensign, warp 9.
posted by Existential Dread at 2:18 PM on December 5, 2015 [7 favorites]

This is a perfect example of the kind of thing that would never have been noticed before, but now is noticed and commented on. Thanks, Twitter!
posted by chavenet at 2:23 PM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

So now they've finally found the magic dress that does it all and is cheap, and they get ridiculed all over the internet for wearing the same dress.

I wonder if anyone has noticed that men's business wear is even MORE similar. This could be the next big discovery, people.
posted by fraula at 2:32 PM on December 5, 2015 [60 favorites]

"Look at those compilation pictures long enough, and it starts to feel like I'm looking at Star Trek uniforms."

You would think they would be smart enough not to wear the red version... :-\
posted by HuronBob at 2:38 PM on December 5, 2015

This could be the next big discovery, people.

Men's business war isn't similar. It's standardized, using special masculine metrics. Totally different.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:06 PM on December 5, 2015 [10 favorites]

Meanwhile, this male anchor wore the same suit every day for a year. (The fucks no one gave will [not] SHOCK you!)
posted by ThatSomething at 3:12 PM on December 5, 2015 [11 favorites]

shakespeherian: "The most surprising part to me was how small-market TV meteorologists can expect to make only $25k."

Are the people doing the weather for the average local news program credentialed meteorologists doing their own forecasts? I always figured they were mostly just on air personalities reading someone elses forecasts whose training was in broadcasting.
posted by Mitheral at 3:16 PM on December 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

Mitheral: "Are the people doing the weather for the average local news program credentialed meteorologists doing their own forecasts? I always figured they were mostly just on air personalities reading someone elses forecasts whose training was in broadcasting."

In New Orleans, where I grew up, pretty sure they're all trained meteorologists. My cousin went to school for meteorology and is on-air talent at a station in Baton Rouge. Not sure about smaller markets.
posted by savetheclocktower at 3:20 PM on December 5, 2015

I can attest that at least one local TV/radio weatherman in Savannah is a meteorologist/physicist.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 3:51 PM on December 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

(He may also enjoy performing in community musical theater.)
posted by Hal Mumkin at 3:57 PM on December 5, 2015 [9 favorites]

That's a great link, LobsterMitten (and zachlipton). Thanks for adding it to the thread.

And just to be clear, it was never my intention to poke fun at the meteorologists. I just really liked the apparent mystery with, as I included in the tags, a perfectly reasonable explanation: Meteorologists are subject to a strict dress code because technical reasons, female meteorologists are subject to an even stricter dress code because sexism, a secret Facebook group for female meteorologists exists because Internet. A member of that group shares a link to a work-suitable dress that looks good and doesn't cost much, and the inevitable ensues.
posted by Faint of Butt at 4:22 PM on December 5, 2015 [10 favorites]

They said this air would be breathable
Get in, get out again, and no one gets hurt...
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 4:43 PM on December 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

A member of that group shares a link to a work-suitable dress that looks good and doesn't cost much, and the inevitable ensues.

They have cameras.
posted by solarion at 4:44 PM on December 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

I put a question on AskMetafilter a few years ago about who actually runs the data in the weather report, and I got some interesting answers!
posted by aabbbiee at 5:41 PM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

A friend of mine, who was pregnant at the same time I was, was a TV meteorologist (and a good one, and a big weather geek!) when I was on the school board and both of us got ugly, nasty e-mails and comments from random idiots, who all felt perfectly free to use their real names and a depressing number of whom were men in their 50s (not idiots trolls in high school), who would constantly be like "HEY FAT BITCH GET OFF MY TV IF YOU'RE GOING TO SWELL UP LIKE THE HINDENBURG" or "I CAN'T EVEN SEE CLEVELAND YOU'RE SO FUCKING FAT." Plenty of them knew we were pregnant and informed us that we were "too fat" for pregnancy or that if pregnancy was going to make us so unattractive we had an obligation not to appear on TV for the duration.

Anyway, long story short, my friend quit and went to law school when she got pregnant a second time because she just couldn't deal with people bitching about her pregnant belly eclipsing Cleveland again.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:59 PM on December 5, 2015 [15 favorites]

For anyone considering buying one for themselves, the comments seem to agree that it runs small, so buy a size up, and the zipper pockets are just decorative, not functional.
posted by Mchelly at 6:10 PM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm in a decidedly non-major market, and all of the local weather people have bachelors degrees in meteorology. I looked up the requirements for a BS in meteorology, and it appears not to be a joke. It requires math through Calc III and Differential Equations, for instance. So yeah, probably a job that ought to be paid more than $25,000 a year, although the meteorologists around here look like they're about 12, and I suppose it's better than an unpaid internship.

Anyway, I think that many women can identify with the desire for cheap, work-appropriate clothes.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:15 PM on December 5, 2015 [7 favorites]

Eyebrows, do you mean that school board meetings in the US are televised?
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:40 PM on December 5, 2015

I feel like this is the first step to Star Trek-style uniforms. I think every woman should own one of these dresses.
posted by betsybetsy at 7:55 PM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Since others have already made the Star Trek jokes, let me suggest how cool it would be if all of these meteorologists wore their dresses, along with an identical evocatively-shaped gold and silver brooch, on September 8, 2016.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:00 PM on December 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

Male television presenter wears same suit for a year and no one notices.

Angered by the sexism he saw being heaped upon his female colleagues – and attempts to downplay it – Karl Stefanovic decided to conduct an experiment.

He wore the same blue suit on air, two days in a row. Then three. A month ticked by without a ripple.

Now, a full year has passed – and he is still wearing the same cheap Burberry knock-off, every morning, on Channel Nine's Today program.

Not a single audience member has asked about it, he says. Fashion commentators and other media also seem oblivious.

posted by Thella at 8:50 PM on December 5, 2015 [4 favorites]

"Eyebrows, do you mean that school board meetings in the US are televised?"

In bigger districts, yes, typically on public access or government affairs cable. Some are radio broadcast, which is better, because people are way bigger dicks when they can make fun of your looks.

This one gentleman, who owned a salon, Facebook messaged me THREE TIMES detailing how he could fix my terrible eyebrows. I was like, Fuck off, dude, my eyebrows are magnificent, and possibly your salon needs customers so badly since your marketing strategy is body-shaming random women you're never met.

Actually it was worse (for both of us) after the babies were born because some people apparently hold back their spite and bile out of consideration for pregnant women, but once the baby is born feel free to tell you how you're an ugly fat cow and should stop appearing on television until you get some self respect and lose some weight. FOUR WEEKS POST PARTUM, I'M NOT SOME KIND OF MAGIC KARDASHIAN. I was bloated and weepy and sleep deprived and leaking milk and showing up for six hour meetings and having idiots email me telling me to lose weight and wear longer sleeves because my upper arms were too fat.

Being a woman in the public eye basically sucks, I feel for these meteorologists.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:53 PM on December 5, 2015 [11 favorites]

Since others have already made the Star Trek jokes, let me suggest how cool it would be if all of these meteorologists wore their dresses, along with an identical evocatively-shaped gold and silver brooch, on September 8, 2016.

World Physical Therapy Day?
posted by LastOfHisKind at 9:39 PM on December 5, 2015

"Not a single audience member has asked about it, he says. Fashion commentators and other media also seem oblivious."

To be fair, most suits are boring, made out of boring colors most of the time, and look like every other suit. It's the uniform of the professional boring bigshot. I can't tell any man's suit from any other man's suit unless he's wearing the Tenth Doctor's blue or something. It's easier to nitpick someone's wardrobe when you can actually notice it's different from the previous day's outfit.

This reminds me of when my band teacher sat in gum one day and wore the exact same pants the next day. Normally nobody would have noticed, EXCEPT FOR THAT ONE THING....
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:46 PM on December 5, 2015

Just so you know, Eyebrows, the lowest level of government that gets broadcast in Australia is Federal. I think State parliaments are recorded for internal use and they may be available for download, but the idea that a school board (which must be at least two levels below your State government?) would be broadcast – and that people would watch it! – is mind-blowing.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:03 PM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

"...a closed Facebook group for female meteorologists..."

COLLUSION!!! #WeatherGate
posted by brundlefly at 2:55 AM on December 6, 2015

I want to make a Star Trek series now where the entire crew are wearing this dress.

Everyone.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 4:21 AM on December 6, 2015

One other thing about the dress: it's sleeveless. Which has, in recent years, become the de facto requirement for female television personalities regardless of season.
posted by non canadian guy at 7:32 AM on December 6, 2015

Um. The meteorological dress in question is not sleeveless. It has sleeves.
posted by cooker girl at 7:45 AM on December 6, 2015 [3 favorites]

Um. The meteorological dress in question is not sleeveless. It has sleeves.

Oh.
posted by non canadian guy at 9:11 AM on December 6, 2015 [3 favorites]

rum-soaked space hobo: "I want to make a Star Trek series now where the entire crew are wearing this dress."

Given the 100% climate control of the Enterprise and the preponderance of so many guys I know to wear shorts when ever it rises above freezing I'm really surprised they didn't run with the skant more. Make it a preferred choice for a couple of the male ship side crew members without ever commenting on it in the show.
posted by Mitheral at 9:58 AM on December 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

Just so you know, Eyebrows, the lowest level of government that gets broadcast in Australia is Federal. I think State parliaments are recorded for internal use and they may be available for download, but the idea that a school board (which must be at least two levels below your State government?) would be broadcast – and that people would watch it! – is mind-blowing.

I'll blow your mind further then, even many small rural districts do the same thing, and in my experience it's even more popular and contentious.
I remember one knock-down drag-out fight over chewing gum in the High School (it was once a privilege and was unilaterally banned by the principal.) that descended into bitter disagreements over the scope of a principal's powers, community rights in school policy making, and whether or not the cost of removing gum from the walkway to the entrance was worth impinging on the rights of high school students to chew gum. Friendships were actually ended over this. A father started crying in the middle of his statement. When you personally know the people it's way more interesting. Also petty.
It's also handy real-world training for AV students if they happen to have a Broadcasting class at a nearby vocational school.
posted by neonrev at 11:27 AM on December 6, 2015

I like the idea very much. We don't have school boards in Australia; we don't have the same level of engagement with local government or even the mechanisms to do it. I kind of wish we did. The social and structural effects are probably good and, as someone who used to listen to Parliamentary broadcasts a lot, I now think I'd probably have the channel on as background diversion and glance up every now and then to watch McGee's eyebrows silently, imperiously, quashing the opposition.
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:37 PM on December 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

Small-market TV guy here (market #191 woohoo!) -- our on-air weather staff are meteorologists. We have occasionally had to dip into non-met TV people during staffing gaps, but that is the exception, not the norm.
posted by davidmsc at 3:49 PM on December 6, 2015

neonrev: "It's also handy real-world training for AV students if they happen to have a Broadcasting class at a nearby vocational school."

Yeah, ours were filmed by the AV club students. They had an adult supervisor (who ran the soundboard to the microphones that recorded the official legal audio recording of the meetings), but they set everything up, flipped the switch to broadcast, and did all the filming, generally with two cameras, and did the sound feeds for the video. The kids did all the calling to set the schedule with the cable company and things like that, and the kids wrote up budgets, and proposals on equipment purchases, which they submitted to the board and the board voted on. The kids did all the webcasting of both video and audio. They got to know a lot of local news people (reporters covering the meetings, camera guys and photographers getting footage) and it's a pretty impressive resume builder. Most of them were able to get paid internships schlepping cameras at local TV stations or the local PBS, because they demonstrated basic technical competence and the patience and reliability to film entire boring local political meetings week after week. Not too many 16-year-old high school students can say, "Yeah, I was the principle cameraman for 200 hours of broadcast last year in a 250,000-person market."

I think I would have stabbed myself in the eye if someone told me I had to film local government meetings every week for all of high school, but the kids who do it get undeniably good at it and get just a lot of hours of practice with live (if dull) TV. The local TV stations like them as interns because they're not easily ruffled because it's already old hat to them; they know what to do if they have a technical glitch or if people start throwing things or dropping F-bombs or whatever when they're filming for a live remote.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:09 PM on December 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

I am in meteorology, although not the TV side. This article about the dress in the FFP kind of decribes why I never really wanted to be in front of the camera (had poor self esteem when I was young, and never felt attractive enough for it to work).

A lot of TV weather folks have met degrees these days. Possibly because the weather competition of "my Doppler radar is bigger than yours" that I saw in the Oklahoma City TV market has spread to other parts of the country. Or maybe because there are just more people in general graduating with meteorology degrees since Twister came out.
posted by weathergal at 4:15 PM on December 6, 2015 [3 favorites]

It's a pretty solid degree for a job that doesn't pay well, and the opportunities for advancement can't be that great. Unless TV weather people can transfer into talk shows?
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:19 PM on December 6, 2015

They should all conspire to just start wearing men's suits and see how people like it.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 5:41 PM on December 6, 2015

Then they don't need a jacket!
posted by snofoam at 10:15 AM on December 7, 2015

Omnomnom: "So now they've finally found the magic dress that does it all and is cheap, and they get ridiculed all over the internet for wearing the same dress."

While I absolutely believe that this could happen...has it?
posted by Bugbread at 8:37 PM on December 7, 2015