At the end of July, Kyle Cooke, from the Bravo series “Summer House,” stepped into an unconventional role: a weatherboy.
In a video posted on Instagram, Cooke, dressed in a blazer, a shirt, a tie and denim shorts and armed with exactly zero experience as a meteorologist, stands in front of a green screen, pointing out areas where the weather is “sick” enough for a party.
The video was part of Yahoo’s marketing campaign introducing users to its redesigned weather app. But it was also primed to tap into a growing demand from audiences: a weather forecast that is both fun and practical. As extreme weather becomes more common, in large part because of climate change, audiences online are seeking updates that go beyond temperature and precipitation. And a handful of social media creators have surged in popularity by filling that specific niche, offering their followers a “vibes check” or helpful reminders not to get their hair blown out because rain is in the forecast. The creators could be described as distant, wonky relatives of Karen Smith, played by Amanda Seyfried in the 2004 high school comedy “Mean Girls,” who declares that her breasts have the ability to predict rain.
“It feels like every time we blink, there’s another historic flood or a tornado watch or it’s 105 degrees, and I think people are trying to at least have some fun with what’s going on,” said John Homenuk, who started the blog New York Metro Weather two decades ago while he was in high school in the city.
About five years ago, Homenuk, who studied meteorology at Kean University, started posting daily vibe checks on social media alongside a score on a scale of 10.
Last Monday, for example, he rated the weather a 3 out of 10 and declared the vibes unstable. One day in February, during one of New York’s harsher winters, he gave the weather a score of 2 with the caption “just stay in bed.”
“It just took off pretty quickly,” Homenuk said. “On a day that I wouldn’t do it, people would be like, ‘Where’s the vibe? I was waiting.’ And now it’s become a routine for a lot of people.”
Broadcasters have long tried to liven up the weather report; the first televised weather forecast in the U.S. in 1941 featured a cartoon lamb. In 1973, The New York Times reported that TV stations were using entertaining weather reports, anchored by “eccentric,” wisecracking weathermen, to differentiate themselves from competitors.
Some of those entertaining frills fell away as weather apps became ubiquitous.
Enter a new crop of weather-focused creators, many of whom are based in New York City.
Arielle Williams’s first posts — captioned “NYC pants PSA” — came out of a relatable situation. She made the mistake of wearing pants on an especially hot and humid summer day.
“I went down to the subway platform and literally felt like I was going to die,” she said, adding, “So I posted a TikTok that day saying, ‘Don’t wear pants today.’”
Eventually, as the weather changed, she started posting “NYC jacket PSA” videos. On a surprisingly warmer day in March, she told her followers to wear either a light puffy jacket or their spring trench coats. “Maybe you can even lose the coat later!” the caption reads.
Lilly Roser started posting about the weather by happenstance this winter, when New York got record snowfall.
“I was like, ‘In case anybody’s interested, this is the blizzard update right now,’” she recalled. “‘It’s 1:28 p.m., and here’s what the snow looks like.’”
In inclement and dangerous weather situations, the content creators urge people to check the National Weather Service, which is how they obtain their information, and to follow recommended actions.
But otherwise, on most days, turning to these creators can feel like “talking to a friend,” Roser said. “If my friend was visiting New York City, I would call them on the phone and be like, ‘OK, you’ll probably want to pack like a few sweaters in case we’re out in the evening,’” she said. “That’s a lot more reassuring than looking at the weather app and having no idea what 75 degrees in New York feels like.”
All of this chatter on social media informed Yahoo’s redesign of its app, leaning “into this idea that people want more than just the numbers,” said Kat Downs Mulder, a general manager at Yahoo News who oversaw the app’s evolution.
Now, in addition to regular weather metrics, the app also prompts users to wear “breathable fabrics” on particularly humid days or lather on sunscreen when the UV index is high. And, through the end of this month, Cooke will pop up in the app with party weather reports.
The company reported that, since it rolled out the new version of the app, its users are opening it two times more per day than they were the previous version.
“Weather is something that’s so essential in our day-to-day lives,” Downs Mulder said. “It’s something that informs everything that we do. We talk about it everywhere that we go.”
