How gay is your weather?

It started with a cockroach. When meteorologist Justin Mosely saw God's most resilient creature on the set while predicting rain in the Sunshine State in the fall of 2006, he lost it. He. Lost. It. In a... gay way. "OH MY GOD! THERE IT IS!" Mosely screamed in the voice of a sun-damaged housewife twice his age to an off-camera anchorman named Bill. A reluctant star was born.

Mosely, who has repeatedly denied requests for an interview, is not proud of his star-making moment. The station manager of SNN News 6 told a Florida paper, "He wants to get past this. It's not who he is." Of course it's not. As Mosley's station bio makes clear, he's not the kind of guy who screams at bugs, he's the kind of guy who "enjoys tennis and swimming." The station manager also insists that the footage never aired and that the three-hour delay is a fabrication. "The bug didn't go and come back."

But Mosely's reaction brought an important sociocultural-meteorological issue to the fore. Just three days before the cockroach video was posted, openly handsome Sam Champion took control of the laser pointer on Good Morning America. A gay invasion on the world of weather had begun. But are gay weathermen really spreading across the country as fast as a February cold front? Or does it just seem kind of fruity to fiddle with one's Doppler?

"It would be nice" if the gay mafia ruled meteorology, says Dan Woog, a nationally syndicated gay newspaper columnist. "Plenty of weathermen are pretty cute." In his books Jocks and Gay Men, Straight Jobs, Woog talked to gays in nontraditional fields like professional sports, truck driving, and even TV anchoring! Though he's not ready to lump meteorology in with the "gay jobs"—interior decorator, florist, priest—just yet, Woog does think it's getting easier for gays to show up onscreen.

"I don't think there's a gay gene for meteorology," he says, "but maybe being able to point to a map that doesn't exist behind you brings out the showman in people." Now, as spring has sprung and our thoughts turn to warm weather and fey meteorology, Radar presents a showcase of delightfully effervescent weathermen

MIKE BETTES
Mike Bettes, prime-time anchor of Abrams & Bettes: Beyond the Forecast on the Weather Channel, is an Emmy-winning meteorologist with severe weather experience. He's also a 34-year-old bachelor who likes to "surf the Internet, watch college football, and work out" in his spare time. Uh-huh. But even though he says being a TV weatherman is not "all glitz and glamour," Bettes sure did love being crowned a queen by Miss America on a Fourth of July telecast. "It's always been a dream of mine to wear the crown, and now today I can. I am the happiest meteorologist on the face of the earth!" said Bettes.

SAM CHAMPION
Sam Champion, it must be pointed out, is a weatherman, not a meteorologist. His broadcast degree enables him to participate in all of Good Morning America's best bits, like riding a mechanical bull rather poorly. And it's a good thing he's not confined to an X on the floor, because he provides the kind of diversity that's not about being black. On one episode he told viewers all about how Carrie ended up with Big in the Sex and the City finale. Another time he talked ebulliently with Ryan Seacrest about his dropping midnight balls ("I'm really glad I knew how to use the tools, but I was expecting power tools," Champion scolds). And in one magic moment, Champion participated in a cooking segment in which the chef directed him sternly, "Sam, toss this salad right here ... real gently."

MIKE MATHIS
As one YouTube poster astutely observed, "Mike Mathis [of WCCB in Charlotte, North Carolina] is without a doubt the craziest MFer I have ever seen on local TV." In 2004, not long after appearing on the air dressed as a snowflake and a flower and doing his best unintentional Chris Farley impersonation, Mathis sought treatment for alcohol and substance abuse. He insisted, however, that he had never been loaded on the air. No word on his condition when he engaged in the great local pastime of school bus racing at the local speedway. Is it so wrong that we can't distinguish between a man with a drug problem and a friend of Dorothy?

CHRIS ALLEN
Okay. You know those guys who overcompensate? Like, a lot? That's gotta be Chris Allen of WBKO in Bowling Green, Kentucky, who sent a real giveaway when he couldn't resist playing with a medical image of a breast projected onto his green screen. His egregious "Honk! Honk!" and the dreaded lizard tongue were deemed "juvenile and unprofessional" by the station after the years-old tape was leaked. We'll go with "fan of the menfolk or inexperienced," because most men are cured of those habits the night of the sophomore formal.

REG TAYLOR
By now it's a given that some of America's manliest men have participated and succeeded on ABC's Dancing With the Stars. But Reg Taylor of WOLO in Columbia, South Carolina, showed another side of himself entirely when he appeared on Dancing With the Columbia Stars. We're not trying to call Reg out here, unless ballroom dancing in a shiny shirt, commenting on your partner's fragrance, and looking like a goofy, chubby-faced 12-year-old is gay. Which it isn't. Not that there's anything wrong with that.