By Mary O’KEEFE

It has been refreshing to me when I call NOAA and more often than not I am greeted with a female voice. Don’t get me wrong – all of the meteorologists and weather specialists I speak to at NOAA are amazing. They must answer the same questions over and over again from so many reporters and yet they are always patient, kind and willing to not only answer the questions but also explain the answers in detail. But it has been nice to speak with women scientists. Maybe it’s because I am so used to men being the voice on the phone when I call about most of the subjects I am covering that it makes the female voice so welcoming. Or maybe it’s because since birth I have been very aware that women may work in positions of power but they are not always the face, or voice, of those positions. And okay, yes I admit it, I am still carrying some bitterness from watching my mom train men to get promoted over her – so I might be hyperaware of women in the workplace.

The term “weather girl” was apparently first termed in the 1950s when “attractive women weather casters were hired by television station managers in an attempt to boost struggling ratings. Often having no scientific background, weather girls cheerfully presented the forecasts by using gimmicks, including costumes such as bathing suits,” according to AccuWeather.

But as often happens the stereotype often becomes the norm when in fact there have been many women meteorologists who have been working in the field and have made strides forward in science. Here are just three of these pioneers:

Bernice Ackerman is known as the first woman weather caster in the U.S. and the first woman meteorologist at Argonne National Laboratory. She attended the University of Chicago, earned a bachelor’s degree in meteorology in 1948, a master’s degree in meteorology in 1955 and a Doctor of Philosophy in geophysical science in 1965. At Argonne she was the only woman to do research in its Cloud Physics Lab. She actually started her career as a weather observer and flight briefer for Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, or WAVES, during WWII.

She was in the U.S. Weather Bureau and contributed to the research on extended-range tornado forecasting, cloud physics, weather modification, urban climate and radar meteorology. She passed away in 1995.

June Bacon-Bercey grew up in Wichita, Kansas in the area known as Tornado Alley. Although she started her studies in Kansas, majoring in math, she knew she wanted to study meteorology and went to the University of California. Bacon-Bercey told the Baltimore Sun in 1977 that going into the profession was not easy. “When I chose my major, my adviser, who [was then] still at UCLA, advised me to go into home economics.” She ignored that advice and earned her undergraduate degree in meteorology in 1954, the first African American woman to receive that degree. After her degree she began working at NOAA in Washington, D.C. as a weather analyst and forecaster. But she soon turned her talent to studying the effects of hydrogen and atomic bombs on the atmosphere. Remember this was the time of nuclear research … via detonation like at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Bacon-Bercey took a position as a senior advisor at the Atomic Energy Commission. According to reports, when she was offered to appear on television as the TV meteorologist she was hesitant, feeling it was more gimmicky for women rather than promoting serious knowledge. However she agreed and came to love the challenge. She became the chief meteorologist at WGR-TV in Buffalo, New York. She was recognized by the American Meteorological Society with its Seal of Approval and was the 96^th awardee for television since the prize’s inception in 1957 and the first female winner, according to Eos science news magazine.

Dr. Joanne Simpson and her former professor Herbert Riehl in the late 1950s “came up with an explanation of how the atmosphere moved heat and moisture away from the tropics to higher latitudes. That explanation included the ‘hot tower’ hypothesis that later shed light on hurricane behavior,” according to NASA.

She developed the first mathematical cloud model using a slide rule to do the calculations because computers weren’t available. Her work sparked a brand new field of study in meteorology. In the early 1960s she developed the first computer cloud model, according to NASA.

While at NASA her research focused on convective cloud systems and tropical cyclones using numerical cloud models and observations. Between 1986 and the launch in 1997, she served first as study scientist and then project scientist for Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission.

“Joanne’s contributions will forever live on in NASA hurricane research and are a tremendous part of meteorological history,” according to NASA.

These are only three of the history-making women from the past and present in meteorology. Luckily for society there are many more in our area who have studied advanced science. They are not just “weather girls” anymore.

It seems like no matter how many times the weather report states it will be dry the rain sneaks in. The thing about California is that there does not seem to be any real typical weather pattern. It is all up to the jet stream and sometimes it comes in from the north, sometime from the south.

“It’s highly rare to have a normal year,” said Ryan Kittell, NOAA meteorologist.

So, as of Wednesday afternoon, it looks like we will be getting some rain, about an inch, on Friday morning – maybe starting Thursday night. Then light rain may linger Saturday through Sunday. It looks like it will be dry on Monday but Tuesday through Friday there will be more rain.