Vintage Chicago Tribune: Tom Skilling

“Skilling quits,” the headline read.

WGN-TV’s chief meteorologist Tom Skilling will retire next week. Forty-six years ago, though, he was a household name in Milwaukee. At the popular WITI-TV, Skilling presented detailed reports using maps and charts — unique for the time and his calling card today — to help viewers understand weather patterns. He even earned American Meteorological Society certification.

One WITI colleague, however, threatened Skilling’s professional standing. Albert the Alleycat told bad jokes as part of the station’s weather segments. Albert’s antics, which predated Skilling, were beloved by the station and viewers alike. Professional weather forecasters thought Albert gave them a bad reputation. The AMS threatened to revoke Skilling’s seal of approval because of Albert.

That’s because Albert was a puppet.

“I’m caught in the middle. I want to keep the seal and I like Albert,” Skilling said at the time. “I’ve given it a lot of thought and I’m not going to be very happy if the seal is lifted. I’d really be disappointed.”

The decision to leave WITI became easier after Skilling’s airtime decreased and management limited the number of graphics he could use in a broadcast.

“Those maps are my trademark,” he said. “A move like this might ruin my career, but at least I know I stood up for something I believed in.”

Milwaukee’s loss was Chicago’s gain. Skilling took the place of another beloved meteorologist — Harry Volkman — who left WGN-TV to join WBBM-TV. Here’s a look back at highlights in Skilling’s unmatched career.

Jan. 4, 1968: Tribune profiles 15-year-old ‘Accurate Auroran’

The oldest of four children, Tom had an “inherent” interest in meteorology growing up. Instead of spending his paper route money on baseball cards, young Skilling subscribed to a daily weather map service. Unable to continue receiving the weather maps in a timely fashion, Skilling wrote an eight-page letter to Aurora radio station WKKD to see if they could provide him with an alternative. Intrigued, the station’s then-program director, Rusty Tym, set up a meeting with the 14-year-old Skilling.

“I told them, if they can get me some weather maps, I had the audacity to suggest that I’d do a better forecast for Aurora than they were getting from Chicago,” Skilling said.

The pair visited the National Weather Service office in Chicago and somehow convinced the staff to print an extra weather map each day and mail it to Skilling.

After getting his radio operator’s permit from the Federal Communications Commission office in Chicago, the weather wunderkind was soon delivering forecasts on WKKD — while still attending West Aurora High School.

July 27, 1978: Heads to WGN-TV

A brief in the Tribune announced Skilling’s hiring at the station and on Aug. 13, 1978, the eager 26-year-old meteorologist appeared on WGN-TV for the first time. Cracking into the Chicago market, Skilling was welcomed into the TV weathercasting fraternity he had idolized growing up, notably by Harry Volkman and John Coleman.

1980s-onward: Educates community about weather and climate change

Skilling would lead a variety of initiatives to help people learn about the weather.

From 1982 through 2018, Skilling hosted a free annual weather seminar at Fermilab, the physics and accelerator laboratory in Batavia, which would attract thousands. With presentations packed with electrifying videos, slides and lectures by experts in the severe weather field, organizers told the Tribune in 1993 that the event had no equal.

“People start calling the station as early as January to ask about the next seminar. Someone called from Iowa to ask about hotels. It’s really amazing. People are absolutely fascinated by this subject,” Skilling said.

Skilling shared his expertise and interest with a broader audience by putting together specials dedicated to a variety of weather phenomenon. “It Sounded Like a Freight Train,” which aired in 1991, gave an overview of tornado warning systems and safety tips. “When Lightning Strikes,” followed in 1992 with an explanation on how it works and how people could protect themselves. The three-part series, “Hurricane: The Greatest Storm on Earth,” aired in 1994.

Skilling also participated in “Weather Day” with the Chicago White Sox and in 1995 he became the first local TV news personality to go on Chicago Online and “chat” with viewers in real time during a broadcast.

After a half century of meteorological study, and firsthand experience between second homes in Hawaii and Alaska, Skilling is convinced that climate change is an undeniably real danger. In 2022, he produced the two-part series, “Forecast — A Fragile Climate,” about climate change in his beloved Alaska and other parts of the world.

He cited the increased frequency of destructive weather events, such as major storms, heat waves and droughts, as evidence of “profound” man-made climate change.

“The speed at which it’s occurring is what’s dramatic,” Skilling said. “Climate is changing 10 times faster than at any point in 300,000 years or so that humans are believed to have walked the planet.”

May 1996: Reacts to ‘Twister’ — “It’s kind of ‘The Towering Inferno’ of tornadoes”

Skilling was an eager participant when asked to provide expert testimony on the movie “Twister.” In some ways, he wasn’t disappointed. In others, well, blame Hollywood.

Here’s Skilling on:

• The tornadoes themselves: “I take my hats off to the special effects people. I think they did a fantastic job. That’s really the way it looks. It’s a sky filled with debris. … But the one that split (into ‘sister tornadoes’), that strained credibility a bit.”

• Large airborne vehicles: “The notion of hurling automobiles through the air is certainly possible. That fuel truck was a bit much.”

• An airborne cow: “The animals blowing through the air is true. I’ve heard stories about a farmer coming out of his storm cellar and finding his cow chewing cud on the other side of the farm.”

• Storm-chasers driving alongside tornadoes: “The regular and intelligent spotters would never put themselves in harm’s way like they did in the movie.”

• Storm-chasers fleeing on foot from a pursuing tornado: “There’s no way you could outrun one of these things. You’re advised to lay flat because that stuff that’s flying around is not paper. Those are projectiles, and you can suffer serious harm.”

• The clunky-looking machine, called Dorothy, that’s supposed to launch sensor balls into a tornado: “Dorothy was based on an authentic meteorological piece of observation gear called Toto. For a while they did tote this thing around to put it in front of tornadoes. To the best of my knowledge, they abandoned these a few years ago.”

• The disdainful references to being a “weatherman”: “I didn’t think they misrepresented us at all. As a meteorologist, even though they didn’t get everything right, I’m flattered that Hollywood took time to look at what some people in our profession do.”

• The movie itself: “I thought it was fun. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. It’s kind of `The Towering Inferno’ of tornadoes.”

June 17, 1997: Takes over the Tribune’s weather page — and stays there for 9,187 days

The completely redesigned page included more weather maps, informational graphics, data and a seven-day forecast — just like Skilling’s popular weather segments on TV. The popular “Ask Tom” column also let readers submit their weather questions to Skilling, who answered one each day.

One reader’s response to the new feature: “The only problem is that Tom Skilling is taking on more work! Please don’t burn him out!”

Skilling’s last weather page for the Tribune published on Aug. 11, 2022.

Early 2000s: Enron scandal hits Skilling family

Skilling’s rise to local weather stardom on Chicago television was, for a time, overshadowed by his brother Jeff Skilling’s national notoriety as the disgraced former CEO of Enron, the Houston energy company that collapsed amid an accounting scandal in 2001.

Enron’s bankruptcy put thousands of people out of work and wiped out billions in valuation for investors. When the news broke, it was hard for many Chicago viewers to connect the affable weathercaster with America’s corporate villain du jour.

The ordeal took a great toll on the Skilling family.

In February 2005, their father suffered a stroke and head injury when he fell on a sidewalk in Aurora amid the massive publicity surrounding Jeff Skilling’s imminent trial. He died at the age of 83 in December 2006 — two months after his son was sentenced to a lengthy prison term.

Their mother, Betty, died in January 2008, also at the age of 83.

“That was a gut punch for the whole family,” Tom Skilling said. “And it’s one of the saddest moments in my life. I buried two parents who in their final years had to live with that. And it breaks my heart that they did, because they were good people.”

Convicted of conspiracy and securities fraud, Jeff Skilling was sentenced to 24 years in federal prison. He was released in 2019 after serving 12 years.

Tom Skilling’s reputation, however, remains impeccable. He was excused from jury duty in 2006 after a judge agreed that his popular personality could overwhelm fellow jurors.

Aug. 21, 2017: Views a total solar eclipse — ‘Oh, my word!’

“His name is Tom Skilling and anyone who has lived in Chicago for long knows he’s more than a TV meteorologist. He’s a weather evangelist. He loves the clouds, the wind, the sky. He wants you to love them too,” Tribune columnist Mary Schmich wrote. “On Monday, he brought his infectious exuberance to the eclipse, only this time he cried.”

There he stood as the moon crossed the sun, in front of a camera, microphone in hand, a 65-year-old man, choking up, hugging strangers and exclaiming, “Oh, my word!”

All over the internet, he became the incarnation of eclipse-incited rapture.

“As I was descending into tears, I was thinking, ‘My God, get a hold of yourself,’ ” Skilling said as he drove back from southern Illinois to Chicago with a couple of WGN-TV colleagues. “You’re on a mass medium and you’re about to break down and men aren’t supposed to do this. It was kind of a feeling of terror. Am I going to pull myself together enough to throw it to a commercial break?”

He struggled, and people loved him for it.

“Skilling in tears made the whole eclipse,” a woman posted on my Facebook page, a widely heard refrain. I asked her to explain.

“He was like a child on Christmas morning,” she said, “so full of joy and wonder. It’s just rare and beautiful to see that kind of pure joy in an adult. I think we all hope to taste that feeling from time to time.”

Skilling didn’t know why his tears moved so many people. One reason, he said, may be that it was clear they weren’t staged.

“This was just one lowly human being, with a wonderful group of people, reacting to a wonderful, celestial event,” he said. “I guess rare events lead to rare responses.”

Feb. 29, 2020: Steps away temporarily — ‘I hate missing work’

Tom Skilling posts a message on social media stating he will be stepping away from his normal duties for bit as he undergoes a weight-loss procedure.

“Dear friends — Over the next several weeks, beginning Tuesday, I’m stepping away from my weather duties at WGN to undergo gastric bypass surgery,” he said. “I hate missing work. Suddenly you’re not there — and you leave those who follow your work wondering, ‘Where is he? Where did he go?’ I didn’t want anyone wondering for a minute what’s going on without a heads-up and some kind of explanation of what’s happening.”

Skilling returned to work in April 2020, saying he lost 50 pounds since the March 4, 2020, procedure at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Doctors also found and repaired a small hernia, he said.

“The outpouring when I put a couple of things up on Facebook was beyond anything I could have imagined. The kind comments from people have been absolutely mind-boggling to me,” Skilling said.

Oct. 12, 2023: Announces his retirement

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.”

In recognition of Skilling’s 45-year career as a meteorologist and personality throughout the Chicago area, U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Naperville, and U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Chicago, submitted a statement just weeks later to the official Congressional Record honoring him.

February 2024: Nears his final forecast

If March comes in like a lion, for the first time in nearly half a century, Skilling will not be on the air to help viewers weather another storm. Demetrius Ivory, 48, who joined the station in 2013, was named WGN-TV’s new chief meteorologist.

Yet Skilling’s name will live on — the side of one of the city’s snowplows. “Skilling It” was one of six winners in this year’s “You Name a Snowplow” contest.

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