Photo: See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Who She Was
June Bacon-Bercey was a pioneering meteorologist who broke ground as the first Black woman to earn a meteorology degree from UCLA in 1954 and is widely recognized as the first woman with a meteorology degree to deliver televised weather forecasts in the United States. She began her career as a forecaster and analyst with the National Weather Service (then called the Weather Bureau) and later worked for the Atomic Energy Commission, where she studied how nuclear explosions affect the atmosphere. As chief meteorologist at WGR-TV in Buffalo, New York, she became in 1972 the first woman and the first African American to earn the American Meteorological Society's Seal of Approval for television weathercasting. In 1977, she won $64,000 on a television quiz show by answering questions about composer John Philip Sousa, and she used part of the winnings to endow a scholarship for women studying atmospheric science. She died in 2019 at the age of 90.
Why She Matters
June Bacon-Bercey's career matters because she proved that talent and determination can break through barriers that once seemed impossible. At a time when very few women and even fewer Black women worked in meteorology, she earned top credentials, contributed to scientific research on the atmosphere, and delivered the weather on television when almost no one who looked like her had done so. Her decision to create a scholarship for young women entering atmospheric science shows she wasn't content to succeed on her own; she wanted to make sure the next generation had a clearer path. For young people who see themselves as different from the typical image of a scientist, Bacon-Bercey's story reminds us that meteorology is stronger and better because people like her refused to be left out.
