Weathering the Storms: Workplace Wellbeing, Mental Health, and the U.S. Meteorologist

Abstract

Mental health is a topic of increasing interest and concern across the weather enterprise amidst a backdrop of funding cuts, extreme storms, and longer, more involved work hours. The present study therefore investigated wellbeing in the meteorological workplace. Participants (N= 389), professional meteorologists (n = 360) and professionally-employed meteorology students (n = 29), voluntarily participated in a Qualtrics-hosted online survey and responded to a number of measures representing a broad range of mental health variables. These individuals fell into three employment sectors: U.S. National Weather Service (NWS), Broadcast (television weather), and Other (a combination of academic, private sector, military, and non-NWS operational meteorologists). Individual differences emerged between meteorological sectors in personality and the subjective wellbeing domains of burnout, job satisfaction, and anxiety. Broadcasters were significantly more burnt-out at work and personally, were higher in extraversion, and were highest in anxiety. NWS meteorologists were most burnt-out in working with partners. The Other category of meteorologists showed more agreeableness and greater job satisfaction than broadcasters and those in the NWS. There was no cross-sector difference, however, in traits that might be relatively uniform among meteorologists: Grit, life satisfaction, self-concept clarity, subjective happiness, stress, and depression. Results are discussed in terms of consequences for meteorologists' mental health and emotional wellbeing as well as the future of the field.

Impostor Syndrome and its Association with Adolescent Experiences of Parenting Styles in General and Two Prototypically-High IS Populations

“…programming, and more-scored highest in impostor syndrome as well as downward social comparison. This contrasts their higher job satisfaction ratings found by Bolton and Ault (2020),…”

“…Wood et al (2008) found no relation between social desirability and authenticity, Pearson r bivariate correlational analysis in this study indicated socially-desirable responding for the authentic living subscale specifically, r(196) = 0.17, p = 0.02, suggesting a majority of our participants tried to manipulate their self-presentation as more authentic. Considering this noteworthy due to Bolton and Ault's (2020) findings on image management in another sample of meteorologists, with respect to aspects of burnout and happiness-were meteorologists attempting to manage our impressions of them here, too?-we split the sample by group and found that the meteorologists did not contribute to this relationship, with r(82) = .08, p = .449. Our data instead suggests that the general population (r[101] = .24, p = .02) carried this association.…”

“…Imposter syndrome was first analyzed conceptually in meteorologists by Bolton andDePodwin (2019, 2020), who noted the psychologically unforgiving nature of the atmospheric science field. Intense university curricula (U.S. Office of Personnel Management, n.d.); fierce competition for field internships and regular job openings at the student as well as the professional level (Bolton & DePodwin, 2019); constant, gender-invariant public scrutiny for weather forecasters on television, from within the field as much as from outside (Connell, 2022;Cranford, 2018;Green Jr. et al, 2019;Strong, 2018); continual juggling of unstable shiftwork (Bolton & Ault, 2020); and ever-changing requirements for professional development (American Meteorological Society, 2022) are just a few stressors within the meteorological field. In light of all this, it's no wonder meteorologists would endure feelings of insecurity and self-perceived fraudulence, even in the face of opposing evidence of their competence (Clance, 1985).…”

An Integrationist, Meteorologist-oriented Perspective on Trauma and Mental Health Coping

“…ourselves or anyone else. " -Fred Rogers (1928-2003 Meteorologists are increasingly concerned with mental health, as evidenced by discussions in publications (Bolton, Ault, Greenberg, & Baron-Cohen, 2018;Bolton & Ault, 2020;Bolton & DePodwin, 2019;Gilford, Moser, DePodwin, Moulton, & Watson, 2019), presentations at weather and other conferences, and in postings on social media. However, discourse has been primarily anecdotal, while psychological concepts related to trauma have been only loosely-defined.…”

“…Although meteorologists appear psychologically stable in a relative sense (Bolton et al, 2018;Bolton & Ault, 2020), recent and ongoing discussion within the weather enterprise shows they are not immune to these processes, which are separate from more generalized professional workplace burnout (Newell & MacNeil, 2010). That being said, all of this discussion, which might be rather abstract, begs the question of how one can cope with difficult emotions.…”