June Bacon-Bercey

Born on 23 October 1928, June Bacon-Bercey was a pioneering meteorologist. She holds the distinctions of being the first African American woman meteorologist and the first woman television meteorologist in the US. Born in Wichita, Kansas, Bacon-Bercey earned her bachelor’s degree in meteorology from UCLA in 1954. After stints working for the National Meteorological Center in Washington, DC, and Sperry Rand Corp, she became a television broadcaster for NBC in Buffalo, New York, in 1970. When the weatherman was fired, Bacon-Bercey stepped in and quickly gained recognition for her work. In 1972 Bacon-Bercey was awarded the American Meteorological Society’s “seal of approval” for excellence in television weathercasting—the first woman and the first African American ever to achieve that distinction. After four years at NBC, she spent the next decade and a half working for the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency. She also received a master of public administration from USC in 1979. Among her many advocacy roles, she helped found the American Meteorological Society’s Board on Women and Minorities in 1975. After retiring from government service in 1989, Bacon-Bercey continued to be involved in consulting and educational work. She established a meteorology laboratory at Jackson State University in Mississippi. She created an annual scholarship , administered by the American Geophysical Union, that was awarded to female students in the atmospheric sciences; originally funded from prize money she won as a contestant on a TV quiz show, the scholarship will be re-established in 2021. Bacon-Bercey was recognized by NASA as a Minority Pioneer for Achievement in Atmospheric Sciences and is the subject of a book: June Bacon-Bercey: A Meteorologist Talks about the Weather (2006). She died on 3 July 2019 at age 90. (Photo credit: American Geophysical Union, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives)

Editor’s note, 27 January 2020: This article was updated to report Bacon-Bercey’s death and also corrected. Bacon-Bercey received a bachelor’s in meteorology from UCLA, not from the University of Kansas as previously reported, and she was born in 1928, not 1932. We had also incorrectly reported that she received a master’s degree from UCLA. Thanks to Dail St. Claire, Bacon-Bercey’s daughter, who confirmed those facts and described the revived AGU scholarship.

Date in History: 23 October 1928