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ou won ’ t be surprised to discover that retiring WGN-TV meteorologist Tom Skilling has loved the weather since he was young .
“ My parents couldn ' t figure out where the heck this weather passion came from ,” Skilling admits . “ I had a psychic tell me one time that I was a ship captain in a previous life . It ' s as good an explanation as I could come up with on where this weather thing came from . Nobody in the family had worked in meteorology . But I ' ll tell you , I turned 72 this month , and I ' ve never been more interested in the weather than I am today .”
Of course , the meteorology world has changed dramatically since he started in the business 50 years ago . “ I worked with a puppet in Milwaukee , which was not my first choice on how to do the weather ,” he says with a chuckle . “ Channel 6 in Milwaukee was home of Albert the Alley Cat , the puppet . He was teamed up with Warren Allen , who did the weather . They told me Allen was going back to the kid ' s show because they wanted a more scientific approach to the weather , ‘ But would you work with a puppet for a little bit ?’ And the Milwaukee Journal noticed that and published the fact that Albert the Alley Cat was going back to the cartoon show , and all the mail started arriving in bags . I remember one letter said , ‘ If you take Albert off , it ' s like killing our family pet .’ The mail was piled in our news director ' s office from the floor to the ceiling . So that ' s how I started working in Milwaukee . I hope the era of weather puppets has passed .”
It wasn ’ t much more advanced in Chicago when he arrived in 1978 . “ We had a classic plexiglass board with flow pens that would leak . One night there was a story John Drury was leading into , and Harry Volkman hadn ' t realized that he put the pen in his pocket , and it leaked . John Drury , who had just reported on a plane crash in Poland , turned to Harry and started laughing because Harry ' s entire shirt was bathed in black ink . People called and thought he was laughing at the plane crash . That wasn ' t it at all . He was laughing at Harry ' s leaking flow pen .”
It has come a long way since then . “ I ' ve had a front-row seat to a science that has undergone revolutionary change . And a lot of it originated from Madison , which is the birthplace of satellite meteorology , at the University of Wisconsin , my alma mater . We take this for granted now , but the development of the weather satellite as a tool for analyzing our global weather enabled us for the first time to peer down on the 70 % of the planet that ' s ocean and therefore poorly observed and derive data that we can then feed into our computer models . That ’ s what makes computer modeling possible . So , yeah , it ' s been an interesting half-century in meteorology .”
Ask a weatherman to list highlights of his career , and you ’ ll hear the weather ’ s greatest hits . “ My first year here turned out to be the snowiest winter in Chicago weather history . It included the Jane Byrne / Michael Bilandic blizzard . The first snowstorm arrived December 1 ,
By Rick Kaempfer
TOM SKILLING ’ S PARTING WORDS
and we had a snowstorm every two weeks from that point forward . We had quite a snowpack on the ground . In fact , if memory serves me correctly , that January featured the deepest-ever cover of snow in Chicago because of the collective storms . The poor Streets and Sanitation folks charged with getting rid of the snow couldn ' t figure out where to put it all . They piled it up along the lakefront in various locations . And those piles of snow didn ' t melt until June . Really amazing . I also remember the first twenty-six below zero temperature in January 1982 , where it was so cold that literally the buildings were creaking and none of our cars started out in the
Tom Skilling
parking lot . I remember the 1995 heatwave , which to this day is the deadliest natural disaster in Chicago weather history . My Tribune Weather Page colleague Paul Dailey collaborated with John Wilhelm , who was the city health commissioner , poring over all the morbidity and mortality stats and looking at the meteorological conditions at which people started to die and quantifying those . The city then produced a plan to open cooling centers . God only knows how many lives have been saved by that effort . We also did 38 years of tornado seminars for the public at Fermilab . They have a beautiful facility there . The sessions were incredibly attended , and we would pack that auditorium .”
Skilling has been overwhelmed by the outpouring of love he has received since his retirement announcement . “ I ' ve just been moved to the core of my being . I ' ve always remembered what John Coleman said years ago . He said that Chicago is Broadway for a weather forecaster . I thought that was an interesting way to put it . There is a unique connection between the weather person and the audience . It ’ s an unusual role that we fill because we ' re covering this atmosphere of ours , which has an impact on our everyday lives , even if it ' s as simple as causing us to dress differently to deal with the weather .”
Any parting words , Mr . Skilling ? “ It ’ s been an absolute privilege to do what I ' ve done where I ' ve done it on one of the greatest television stations in the world .” march 2024 illinoisentertainer . com 19