 |
| Mike Hamernik |
The Chicago Tribune reports his death was announced on his Twitter account by Hamernik’s sister, Kathleen O’Grady, who said he died at home “surrounded by love and at peace.”
A Chicago native, Hamernik, 60, began his career as a Chicago TV meteorologist in 2002 at CLTV, the former local cable news channel. He joined co-owned WGN-TV in 2005.
Hamernik’s WGN-TV roots and his passion for weather dated back much further, the station said in a news release.
As a child growing up in Rogers Park on Chicago’s North Side, Hamernik was fascinated when a microburst knocked down many of the large trees in his yard. His father, Donald Hamernik, who worked at WGN-TV as a longtime drummer for the Big Top Band on “Bozo’s Circus,” connected Hamernik with Harry Volkman, then the station’s chief meteorologist.
By the age of 8, the budding meteorologist was deep in station-supplied weather maps, which he collected and studied. They served him well, and by 2002 he was living his childhood dream as a Chicago TV meteorologist.
“Mike Hamernik was an amazing meteorologist and part of the WGN family for nearly two decades. If you knew Mike, you knew he was one of the nicest people you’d ever meet and was extremely dedicated to his craft,” WGN-TV News Director Dominick Stasi said in a statement.
Hamernik studied meteorology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and launched his career with Madison-based Weather Central. In 1992, he moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to work as a meteorologist for KGAN-TV. He was chief meteorologist from 1994 to 2001 at KTTC-TV in Rochester, Minnesota, before returning home to Chicago and landing a position with CLTV.
He became the weather anchor for WGN’s weekend morning news in 2010, and a go-to forecasting expert, even among his peers.
Tom Skilling, the longtime WGN-TV chief meteorologist, called Hamernik the “consummate meteorologist” while visiting with family, friends and colleagues Wednesday at O’Grady’s Naperville home.
No comments:
Post a Comment