Famed Chicago meteorologist Tom Skilling retiring after 45 years

The voice of WGN-TV chief meteorologist Tom Skilling has been heard in Chicago-area living rooms for generations. After all, when you work at the same TV station for four and a half decades forecasting the weather, folks tend to pay attention to what you have to say. Now, after all that time tracking Mother Nature’s meteorological caprice, Skilling is calling it a career.

He plans to retire at the end of February after one more ever-tempestuous Chicago winter, a week after his 72nd birthday. The emotional announcement came during the evening news on Thursday.

“There’s no formula for this,” he said, explaining that “it’s the toughest decision” he’s had to make. He described WGN as “incredible,” thanking the station for a “marvelous” 45 years.

Although Chicagoans are most familiar with Skilling, his forecasts entered living rooms across the country because WGN was carried by many cable providers nationwide for years.

Advertisement

Skilling, widely regarded as the gold standard in television weather, began his career broadcasting for several radio stations in Aurora, Ill., when he was 14. He became a regular at WKKD-FM a year later, daring management to take a chance on him if his forecasts were accurate. At 18, he pivoted to local TV before heading to the University of Wisconsin at Madison and working simultaneously in television and radio.

In 1975, Skilling accepted the lead forecaster position at WITI-TV in Milwaukee, then joined WGN in 1978. The rest is history.

Broadcast meteorologists across the country took to social media to congratulate Skilling on a legendary career, many of them attributing their fascination with all things weather to watching him during their formative years.

We reached out to a spattering of television meteorologists across the country, and the accolades came pouring in:

Advertisement

• “If the rest of us doing the weather on TV can have half the career that he’s had, we can call that a win. His contribution to the weather community and the city of Chicago is beyond compare and we all are thankful for him.” — Bryan Hughes, morning meteorologist WOWK-TV, Charleston, W.Va.
• “He was communicating with the viewers, explaining the science. I know that probably meant a lot to each person writing him. People are more apt to pay attention when they understand the ‘why.’ He was explaining the why. I would say he was one of the pioneers to do that.” — Aubrey Urbanowicz, chief meteorologist WHSV-TV, Harrisonburg, Va.
• “I have known Tom for decades. I remember when I first saw one of his weathercasts. I was in awe of his graphics and his explanation. He tells an easy-to-understand weather story. Off camera, he is as affable, generous and friendly as you would expect.” — Bryan Busby, chief meteorologist KMBC-TV, Kansas City, Mo.
• “Tom has been and will always be one of the greats of broadcast meteorology. People may not have always believed the forecast, but they believed Tom. His enthusiasm, love of weather, and honesty is contagious and needs to be bottled for any aspiring future communicator.” — Bob Ryan, former chief meteorologist WRC-TV in D.C.
• “He proved that in the world of spinning maps and flashy graphics, explaining the science behind weather can still make people watch.” — Paul Dellegatto, chief meteorologist at Fox 13 in Tampa
• “Tom turned TV weather into TV meteorology, bringing science to the screen. He has shown us that if you can explain it, you can show it — and your viewers will learn something about the weather to take with them.” — Tim Buckley, chief meteorologist at WFMY-TV in Greensboro, N.C.
• “Tom Skilling is a legend … an absolute rock star among his peers. Nobody does the weather like Tom. Heck, none of us even get the amount of time in our newscasts to do the weather like Tom. He set the bar very, very high.” — Paul Gross, Detroit-based meteorologist formerly at WDIV-TV.

The common theme of all who admire Skilling’s work is his uncanny ability to bring teachable moments into his newscasts — even more engaging than the actual weather forecast was why the weather was doing what it was doing.

And in an era punctuated by increasingly succinct, brief “sound byte” broadcasting that often limits news stories to seconds on the minute, Skilling routinely was allowed five to seven minutes for his evening forecast — something unheard of in modern-day broadcasting. His weathercasts often featured highly technical meteorological maps that he would break down and make understandable and relatable to his viewers.

Skilling has covered it all — from the paralyzing 2011 Groundhog Day blizzard to the 1990 Plainfield, Ill., F5 tornado. He once outran a Great Plains tornado in a story he was filming for the news, and more recently he broke down in tears beneath the Aug. 21, 2017, total solar eclipse.

Skilling’s last day on air will be Feb. 28.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZMSmrdOhnKtnYmV%2FdHuQaWZqa1%2BpvK550qSgpaSZo7RuucStnKiqn6G8qLXSrWScoJmYrqi7jKucraGinruoew%3D%3D