Chicago TV: WGN Meteorologist Announces Retirement

Tom Skilling

Tom Skilling, the longtime WGN-TV chief meteorologist, announced his retirement Thursday during the evening news, reports The Chicago Tribune.

An always sunny presence, whatever the weather in Chicago, Skilling delivered a stormy fall forecast and then hit loyal viewers with the news that he’s reaching the end of a prodigious weathercasting career.

“I’ve watched people do this before and there’s no formula for this,” Skilling said. “I’m going to retire at the end of February, after a marvelous 45 years at this incredible television station.”

Skilling, 71, who started at WGN-Ch. 9 on Aug. 13, 1978, has been a familiar and congenial presence on the Chicago airwaves for decades, expertly and calmly navigating the city’s often unpredictable weather situations for generations of TV viewers.

On Thursday, he discussed the decision with a montage of clips tracing his career in the background, from a fresh-faced and hirsute rookie weatherman delivering a forecast in a Channel 9 blazer to a beloved personality hamming it up with Bozo, the station’s longtime star clown.

“It’s been a great career,” Skilling said.

An expert meteorologist, Skilling brought both authority and amiability to his forecasts, explaining the science behind the weather with graphics, details and a genuine enthusiasm.

After a Skilling forecast, viewers not only knew when they needed a raincoat, but why.

An Aurora native, Skilling started his broadcasting career as a 14-year-old high school student at WKKD Radio in his hometown. He studied meteorology and journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison while continuing to work in radio and television. After stops in Madison and Milwaukee, where he was a meteorologist at WITI-TV, he landed at WGN, where Skilling became synonymous with Chicago weather for more than four decades.

“Tom Skilling is a Chicago institution,” Paul Rennie, WGN-TV vice president and general manager, said in the news release. “There isn’t another meteorologist in the history of the city, or the country for that matter, who has been more impactful doing what he does.”

Thanking viewers and colleagues on Thursday’s broadcast, Skilling said knowing when to retire was among the toughest decisions he had to make.