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Paper short abstract

Based on interviews with Canadian broadcast meteorologists, this paper examines how atmospheric, bureaucratic, and media temporalities are synchronized through anticipation and improvisation. It shows how embodied expertise mediates uncertainty and shapes public communication of weather risk.

Paper long abstract

In this study, I focus on the temporalities of broadcast meteorological labour in Canada through interviews with meteorologists who produce daily forecasts and severe weather coverage under tight deadlines. I approach forecasting as a form of mediation in a public sphere shaped by uncertainty, risk, and contested authority. Building on anthropological and STS work on temporal infrastructures, and time as technique (Star 1999; Bear 2016) and on the politics of mediated time (Sharma 2014), I treat forecasting as the coordination of heterogeneous temporal regimes, from atmospheric dynamics and model update cycles to newsroom schedules and live broadcast timing.

Drawing on semi-structured interviews with meteorologists from major television and news networks across Canada, I show how forecasts are continually adjusted in response to new data, editorial demands, and unfolding events. I argue that meteorological labour is a site where time is not only tracked but actively managed through practices of synchronization, anticipation, and improvisation (Adams et al. 2009). Whether deciding when to interrupt programming, how to communicate uncertainty, or how far ahead to project risk, forecasters rely on embodied expertise (Collins and Evans 2007) built from training, experience, and attunement to institutional and audience expectations.

By showing how time organizes labour, authority, and affect in everyday forecasting practice, I argue that broadcast meteorology plays a crucial role in holding together temporal worlds that might otherwise pull apart. I highlight temporal coordination as a key site where trust, expertise, and public orientation toward uncertain futures are negotiated under conditions of climatic volatility.