Meet the man opening doors and making history in the meteorology field
By
Adriana Navarro, AccuWeather staff writer
Updated Feb 15, 2021 3:04 PM EDT
AccuWeather's Dexter Henry looks at how meteorologist Alan Sealls continues to open doors for others.
How is it possible that a cloud can float?
The idea of something as heavy as water floating captivated Alan Sealls as a third grader, and to this day the science behind it still amazes him.
"My love for weather was organic," Sealls told AccuWeather in an interview. "I didn't even know what was happening, and I guess it's sort of like falling in love with a person. You don't realize it until years later."
They were the little, sometimes scary, sometimes wondrous moments that added to his fascination with the weather -- from catching the sight of lightning flashing across a snow-speckled sky, muted thunder rolling through the clouds in an instance of thundersnow to a summer thunderstorm popping up overhead complete with lightning, rain and hail while the sun shined, unhindered.
"All of that just kind of built up to where I realized one day in high school that if I can have a career where I have something people need, which is weather information, and where I can do something that to me is really interesting, it would be fun," Sealls said.
Combining his talent for performing after years of playing the trumpet with his interest in communication, Sealls landed in the field of broadcast meteorology -- and took his first steps in a career built on his love for weather.
The field of atmospheric sciences is not known for having a vast diversity of scientists at hand, and it was less so earlier during Sealls' career.
Sealls recounted having attended a weather conference back in the early 1990s and, in the habit of sitting in the front row to better focus on the speaker, there was always a point at which he would turn around and scan the room.
"I was the only Black guy in the room out of 100 people," Sealls said, adding that usually on the second day he would see Bryan Busby, Chief Meteorologist at KMBC in Kansas City, Missouri.
"When we would get in the hallway, we'd say, 'Oh, the other Black guy is here,'" Sealls recalled with a laugh. It was a running joke for about a decade.
At several points in his career, Sealls found himself the first African American to fill certain roles, something that spoke to the lack of representation of people of color in the field of meteorology.
As Sealls pursued his career, he entered the field as the first Black meteorologist on TV in Albany, Georgia, in 1987. He then went on and broke similar ground in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1988 before starting at a new station in Chicago during 1992. Seven years later, Sealls became the first Black TV meteorologist and Black Chief Meteorologist in Mobile, Alabama.
In 2018, he became the president of the National Weather Association and the first African American to fill the role. After 34 years as a broadcast meteorologist, 21 of which were spent as the Chief Meteorologist at WKRG-TV in Mobile, Alabama, Sealls landed in his current role -- as the Chief Meteorologist at NBC 15, WPMI-TV in Mobile.
CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APP
"All my life, I always said, 'I want to be so-and-so.' It had nothing to do with skin color," Sealls said. "There are so many Black folks I know outside of meteorology -- you have the same story, whether it's in the military and government agencies: None of them did it to be the first. They did it because they just really wanted to do it."
In 2018, Alan Sealls was elected as the president of the National Weather Association, the first African American to hold the title. (Alan Sealls)
(Alan Sealls)
In 2018, African Americans made up fewer than 5% of the meteorologists in the National Weather Service and only 2% of the membership of the American Meteorological Society (AMS). The numbers haven't budged by much since then.
Atmospheric scientists have speculated as to why the number of people of color in the field is so low. Many of them have stated that, based on their own experiences, a lack of representation and visibility is often a deterrent to entering the field.
"We don't see role models like ourselves in the sciences," Sealls said, explaining one possible reason for the low number of African Americans in the sciences. "And it's hard to picture yourself doing something if you've never seen someone like yourself doing it."
Having grown up in the 1970s, Sealls hadn't seen a Black meteorologist on-screen until he was in high school and watched Al Roker on WNBC-TV. Occasionally, he would see Spencer Christian on WABC-TV also. Other than those two, Sealls recalls not knowing of any other Black meteorologists until he was in graduate school. Still, it didn't deter him.
"Somebody has to open that door," Sealls said. "It's not something that I go out of my way to do, but it is the reason why I find myself in so many situations where it's like, 'How did I get here?' But it's a positive thing."
Alan Sealls on air at WPMI-TV delivering his weather forecast for Mobile, Alabama. (Alan Sealls)
(Alan Sealls)
Sealls described on a few occasions facing a "white expectation" in the field where there was the perception that somehow he "didn't look like the sort of person who f in that room."
At one conference, as he walked toward a room full of AMS donors, a woman tried to stop him before Sealls responded that he was on the list. The man backed off. And Sealls continued forward.
"Just because there's no one there like you, you deserve to be there just like anyone else," Sealls said.
After growing up seeing little to no representation on screen, Sealls has spent the last 21 years delivering the weather forecast to Mobile, Alabama, showing a whole new generation representation in the field.
His work has landed him numerous awards from 11 regional Emmy Awards to a best-in-state award for his retrospective on Hurricane Ivan, which struck in 2004. It was this storm that Sealls believes was the defining moment in his career in the eyes of most of his viewers.
"At that point, it was one of the most devastating hurricanes at least in a generation for our area," Sealls said, adding that to this day people will stop him and bring up his coverage of the hurricane.
Sealls even garnered some attention from the Reddit community with his coverage of Hurricane Irma on WKRG, with some viewers comparing him to Bob Ross or Mr. Rogers, the late PBS icons, for his calm and collected explanation of the storm.
"This guy reminded me more of a really good professor than a weatherman," one user wrote. "If you get a professor or teacher who explains this well and with this much confidence, you know you're in for a good semester."
The Reddit user might not have known, but Sealls has in fact been teaching meteorology courses on and off since he started graduate school at Florida State University. He continued to teach after graduating, including a meteorology course at Columbia College in Chicago and a weather broadcasting course at the University of South Alabama, which he teaches during the spring semester.
Alan Sealls presenting at the National Weather Association. (Alan Sealls)
(Alan Sealls)
"I had never really taught before, but I knew it was directly related to what I do on TV," Sealls said. "On TV you're talking to an audience, you have a lesson plan and outline. You give them information -- there's no homework, usually."
But a classroom presented different challenges.
"You're making eye contact, you're watching to see if they're grasping what you're saying," Sealls said. "And you're getting immediate feedback on your performance -- and when I teach, I treat it like a performance. I'm trying to engage and energize the students and give them information."
In addition to teaching college courses, Alan Sealls was also invited to visit elementary schools as a guest to teach about the weather. This image shows a collection of thank you notes to Sealls after visiting one of the classes. (Alan Sealls)
(Alan Sealls)
The payoff, he said, comes later: Seeing his students in the field, even working with a few of them. Recently, he counted at least five of the people on TV in Mobile who took his class at the University of South Alabama. Back in 2011, he was even able to fly with Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunters to gather data from Hurricane Nate with two of his former students.
Now, after being the only Black student in both his undergraduate and graduate meteorology program, he's seeing the diversity in his own classrooms rise and more people of color showing up at weather conferences.
"That's big progress. Step by step, little by little, I am so energized when I see young people, young brown people, getting into the sciences and moving forward, especially going through the Master's degrees and Ph.D.s," Sealls said. "As much as I inspire them, they inspire me to keep on doing what I'm doing."
Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier, Spectrum, Fubo, and Verizon Fios.
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News / Weather News
Meet the man opening doors and making history in the meteorology field
By Adriana Navarro, AccuWeather staff writer
Updated Feb 15, 2021 3:04 PM EDT
AccuWeather's Dexter Henry looks at how meteorologist Alan Sealls continues to open doors for others.
How is it possible that a cloud can float?
The idea of something as heavy as water floating captivated Alan Sealls as a third grader, and to this day the science behind it still amazes him.
"My love for weather was organic," Sealls told AccuWeather in an interview. "I didn't even know what was happening, and I guess it's sort of like falling in love with a person. You don't realize it until years later."
They were the little, sometimes scary, sometimes wondrous moments that added to his fascination with the weather -- from catching the sight of lightning flashing across a snow-speckled sky, muted thunder rolling through the clouds in an instance of thundersnow to a summer thunderstorm popping up overhead complete with lightning, rain and hail while the sun shined, unhindered.
"All of that just kind of built up to where I realized one day in high school that if I can have a career where I have something people need, which is weather information, and where I can do something that to me is really interesting, it would be fun," Sealls said.
Combining his talent for performing after years of playing the trumpet with his interest in communication, Sealls landed in the field of broadcast meteorology -- and took his first steps in a career built on his love for weather.
'Somebody has to open that door'
The field of atmospheric sciences is not known for having a vast diversity of scientists at hand, and it was less so earlier during Sealls' career.
Sealls recounted having attended a weather conference back in the early 1990s and, in the habit of sitting in the front row to better focus on the speaker, there was always a point at which he would turn around and scan the room.
"I was the only Black guy in the room out of 100 people," Sealls said, adding that usually on the second day he would see Bryan Busby, Chief Meteorologist at KMBC in Kansas City, Missouri.
"When we would get in the hallway, we'd say, 'Oh, the other Black guy is here,'" Sealls recalled with a laugh. It was a running joke for about a decade.
At several points in his career, Sealls found himself the first African American to fill certain roles, something that spoke to the lack of representation of people of color in the field of meteorology.
As Sealls pursued his career, he entered the field as the first Black meteorologist on TV in Albany, Georgia, in 1987. He then went on and broke similar ground in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1988 before starting at a new station in Chicago during 1992. Seven years later, Sealls became the first Black TV meteorologist and Black Chief Meteorologist in Mobile, Alabama.
In 2018, he became the president of the National Weather Association and the first African American to fill the role. After 34 years as a broadcast meteorologist, 21 of which were spent as the Chief Meteorologist at WKRG-TV in Mobile, Alabama, Sealls landed in his current role -- as the Chief Meteorologist at NBC 15, WPMI-TV in Mobile.
CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APP
"All my life, I always said, 'I want to be so-and-so.' It had nothing to do with skin color," Sealls said. "There are so many Black folks I know outside of meteorology -- you have the same story, whether it's in the military and government agencies: None of them did it to be the first. They did it because they just really wanted to do it."
In 2018, Alan Sealls was elected as the president of the National Weather Association, the first African American to hold the title. (Alan Sealls)
In 2018, African Americans made up fewer than 5% of the meteorologists in the National Weather Service and only 2% of the membership of the American Meteorological Society (AMS). The numbers haven't budged by much since then.
Atmospheric scientists have speculated as to why the number of people of color in the field is so low. Many of them have stated that, based on their own experiences, a lack of representation and visibility is often a deterrent to entering the field.
"We don't see role models like ourselves in the sciences," Sealls said, explaining one possible reason for the low number of African Americans in the sciences. "And it's hard to picture yourself doing something if you've never seen someone like yourself doing it."
Having grown up in the 1970s, Sealls hadn't seen a Black meteorologist on-screen until he was in high school and watched Al Roker on WNBC-TV. Occasionally, he would see Spencer Christian on WABC-TV also. Other than those two, Sealls recalls not knowing of any other Black meteorologists until he was in graduate school. Still, it didn't deter him.
"Somebody has to open that door," Sealls said. "It's not something that I go out of my way to do, but it is the reason why I find myself in so many situations where it's like, 'How did I get here?' But it's a positive thing."
Alan Sealls on air at WPMI-TV delivering his weather forecast for Mobile, Alabama. (Alan Sealls)
Sealls described on a few occasions facing a "white expectation" in the field where there was the perception that somehow he "didn't look like the sort of person who f in that room."
At one conference, as he walked toward a room full of AMS donors, a woman tried to stop him before Sealls responded that he was on the list. The man backed off. And Sealls continued forward.
"Just because there's no one there like you, you deserve to be there just like anyone else," Sealls said.
Holding the door open
After growing up seeing little to no representation on screen, Sealls has spent the last 21 years delivering the weather forecast to Mobile, Alabama, showing a whole new generation representation in the field.
His work has landed him numerous awards from 11 regional Emmy Awards to a best-in-state award for his retrospective on Hurricane Ivan, which struck in 2004. It was this storm that Sealls believes was the defining moment in his career in the eyes of most of his viewers.
"At that point, it was one of the most devastating hurricanes at least in a generation for our area," Sealls said, adding that to this day people will stop him and bring up his coverage of the hurricane.
Sealls even garnered some attention from the Reddit community with his coverage of Hurricane Irma on WKRG, with some viewers comparing him to Bob Ross or Mr. Rogers, the late PBS icons, for his calm and collected explanation of the storm.
"This guy reminded me more of a really good professor than a weatherman," one user wrote. "If you get a professor or teacher who explains this well and with this much confidence, you know you're in for a good semester."
The Reddit user might not have known, but Sealls has in fact been teaching meteorology courses on and off since he started graduate school at Florida State University. He continued to teach after graduating, including a meteorology course at Columbia College in Chicago and a weather broadcasting course at the University of South Alabama, which he teaches during the spring semester.
Alan Sealls presenting at the National Weather Association. (Alan Sealls)
"I had never really taught before, but I knew it was directly related to what I do on TV," Sealls said. "On TV you're talking to an audience, you have a lesson plan and outline. You give them information -- there's no homework, usually."
But a classroom presented different challenges.
"You're making eye contact, you're watching to see if they're grasping what you're saying," Sealls said. "And you're getting immediate feedback on your performance -- and when I teach, I treat it like a performance. I'm trying to engage and energize the students and give them information."
In addition to teaching college courses, Alan Sealls was also invited to visit elementary schools as a guest to teach about the weather. This image shows a collection of thank you notes to Sealls after visiting one of the classes. (Alan Sealls)
The payoff, he said, comes later: Seeing his students in the field, even working with a few of them. Recently, he counted at least five of the people on TV in Mobile who took his class at the University of South Alabama. Back in 2011, he was even able to fly with Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunters to gather data from Hurricane Nate with two of his former students.
Now, after being the only Black student in both his undergraduate and graduate meteorology program, he's seeing the diversity in his own classrooms rise and more people of color showing up at weather conferences.
"That's big progress. Step by step, little by little, I am so energized when I see young people, young brown people, getting into the sciences and moving forward, especially going through the Master's degrees and Ph.D.s," Sealls said. "As much as I inspire them, they inspire me to keep on doing what I'm doing."
Related:
Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier, Spectrum, Fubo, and Verizon Fios.
Report a Typo