Mikayla Smith, a meteorologist from Oklahoma, is making TV weather forecasting a lot more accessible to a wider audience and in the process is rousing curiosity about meteorology for the future generation of forecasters. She began the program while forecasting in the Sherman, Texas area.
Mikayla was introduced to American Sign Language as a little girl in Rockwall when her mother took special education courses in college and worked as a special education teacher. Through her many years of understanding ASL, she has observed the difficulties that Deaf and hard of hearing individuals face in striving to remain well-informed of breaking news reports and also current weather. She's enthusiastic about using ASL to share local weather conditions to the D/HoH population.
Videos of Mikayla’s weather forecasts have quickly gone viral. She hopes that her signing of weather reports will motivate other people to learn sign language. She says she is happy to see the solid impact her signed forecasts have had on the viewers. She does hope the new signing movement will begin to spread, therefore helping special communities that might not often be able to pick up news reports and weather reports on a regular basis.
As a lot more weather forecasters and other people in the news media understand how to sign their reports, they could connect better with the Deaf and hard of hearing and establish a trend of greater inclusiveness for all those with various communication needs in the field of information gathering and syndication.
In response to the need to improve her sign language skills, Mikayla says she is a little out of practice with her signing however is making certain to do the research necessary to be a better D/HoH supporter, and in the interim making huge strides toward greater accessibility to news and weather reports for everyone.
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