Tom Skilling, the dean of Chicago weather forecasters, says there’s a 100% chance he retires early next year.
His last day will be Feb. 28, marking the end of a 46-year run on WGN-Channel 9.
Skilling, 71, made the announcement Thursday on “WGN Evening News.”
“If you had told young Tom Skilling that he would go on to have a career in weather spanning seven decades, working in Chicago, with some truly wonderful people, I think he would be overjoyed,” Skilling said in a statement. “And that’s how I feel today. Overjoyed at the colleagues I’ve worked with, the viewers I’ve met, the stories I’ve covered. Overjoyed and grateful. I wouldn’t trade a single minute of it for anything.”
Since the launch of his career at age 14 at WKKD, a now-defunct AM radio station in Aurora, Skilling has developed a reputation as a reliable forecaster of the weather and the consummate meteorological expert.
In his 50-plus-year career, he has flown into a Florida hurricane, had a puppet co-host on a Milwaukee television station, and embraced legendary radio personality Steve Dahl’s playful mocking of Skilling as “Tommy Skillet-head.” His career also overlapped with some groundbreaking advances in meteorology.
“There was a time when weather forecasting was seen as a not-serious profession,” said WGN-TV News Director Dominick Stasi. “But Tom has taken it to a much higher level. He carefully explains complex meteorological concepts in layman’s terms, supported by graphics often featuring isobars and upper-air charts. Nobody was doing that when he started. Bottom line, he has always treated the audience with respect.”
Skilling was born in Pittsburgh, and moved with his family to New Jersey two years later and to Aurora when he was in the 7th grade.
He studied meteorology and journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where some of the early developments in satellite meteorology happened during his time there.
Skilling joined WGN in August 1978.
A pivotal time in his career came after a few years at WGN, when Skilling received a tempting job offer to return to a former station in Milwaukee.
He decided to stay in Chicago after persuading WGN to computerize its weather graphics.
“It’s really been fun because we’re able now to visualize the weather as never before,” Skilling told the Sun-Times as he reflected on his career. “Weather used to be the kind of gimmicky thing — plexiglass boards and leaking pens that you used, and blinking highs and lows. Today, we can actually show folks how the weather is supposed to evolve because the modeling that’s done today is so spectacular.”
He helped to change the landscape of weather reporting, bringing animated satellite imagery and radar on-air to WGN. Before that, he animated his own weather maps, which took hours to create for a newscast.
Those advancements have helped pave the way for the industry to evolve weather prediction even further, to help inform the public on day-to-day shifts in weather and help scientists understand the complexities of climate change.
And for those who complain that the “weather guy” gets to be wrong every night and keep his job, Skilling said they may be surprised.
“We’re not that inaccurate. In fact, forecasts today have never been better,” Skilling said. “We’re not perfect, this is a complex system we’re charged with forecasting, but I’ll tell you we’ve got a better chance at getting a forecast right today — and there’s a joy in understanding how nature’s putting these weather systems together.”
His work made an impact on viewers near and far, including Sun-Times outdoor writer Dale Bowman.
“He inspired me to get my storm-spotter training and take refresher courses nearly annually,” Bowman said. “The genuineness of his crying during the 2017 solar eclipse hit me because we were some miles east of Carbondale and I was crying too (though not on TV).”
Said ABC-7 meteorologist Larry Mowry: “He is a trailblazer in incorporating science into the everyday weather forecast. He has elevated the profession to a new level where science and expertise are truly appreciated. Enjoy your time watching and forecasting the weather without a deadline.”
Skilling said he couldn’t pinpoint a reason that sparked his interest in weather as a kid. Rather, he simply recalls that, “Growing up, I always loved the weather.”
“I just find the weather so intricately connected with all of our lives,” Skilling said. “It affects the way we feel, it affects our psychology, it affects the way even medicines work. And, of course, in this day and age with our concern about climate change, it has taken on a relevance and an importance that is far beyond anything that has existed before.”
Some monumental weather events over the years that stood out to him include an infamous snowstorm during the 1979 mayoral primary election that shed light on the ineffectiveness of snow removal, likely costing incumbent Michael Bilandic his job.
“How about the 1995 heat wave disaster and then a year later we had a 17-inch rain in Aurora that submerged our western suburbs and created serious flooding,” Skilling said. The heat wave killed more than 700 people in five days.
A category F-5 tornado in Plainfield that killed 29 people and injured around 350 in 1990 was another memorable event that led to change in meteorology.
“There is a great example — we didn’t get the warnings out on that very well,” Skilling said. “We now have Doppler radar, which we didn’t have at the time — a very sophisticated Doppler radar that hopefully will prevent a disaster like that from happening again.”
Skilling said choosing to retire was the toughest decision of his life, but the time felt right, and he emphasized that it was “my call,” and that he’s in good health.
As for his time in retirement, Skilling, who never married and has no children, said he’ll enjoy having the unstructured time to travel and live life for the first time since being a teenager.
“And I have no intention of leaving Chicago. I want to stay here. I’ve been doing a lot of work on climate change talks, working with our legislators and interfacing with the public to try to get the message out on why this is important and how it may impact us. I’d like to continue doing that, so who knows what else may come up?”
