Tom Skilling
WGN-TV - METEOROLOGIST

Tom Skilling is the ever-popular chief meteorologist for WGN-TV News at Nine and News at Noon. He joined WGN-TV in 1978. 

Starting his successful career at the unheard-of age of 14, Skilling was hired by WKKD in Aurora, Ill., while attending West Aurora High School. He joined WLXT-TV three years later, while going to school during the day. 

In 1970, Skilling moved to Madison, Wis., to study meteorology and journalism at the University of Wisconsin/Madison, and to work at WKOW-TV and WTSO-Radio. Before coming to Chicago, Skilling worked as a weathercaster in Jacksonville, Fla., and later was rated the No. 1 meteorologist on Milwaukee television, for his work on WITI-TV and WAUK-Radio from 1975 to 1978. 

In October of 1996, Tom's popularity brought about the weekly segment, "Ask Tom Why," where he takes viewers questions and answers the "why" behind the weather. 

In 1997, the Chicago Tribune launched the Tom Skilling weather page in which he and his hard-working team produce a full color, full page weather section for the Chicago Tribune. 

Skilling was the first meteorologist in Chicago to implement a new state-of-the-art 3-D, animated representation of the weather created from satellite pictures, with the "WGN-TV Weather Flight." The "WGN-TV Weather Flight" takes its viewers on a realistic flight through current and future weather conditions. The system allows Skilling to visualize upcoming weather patterns as never before, using computerized virtual reality technology, and is considered the most realistic image of the Earth's weather as seen from space. 

Skilling was also the first to deliver weather forecasts using "animated" computer graphics and information gathered with the weather profession's fastest 24-hour satellite data delivery system using two 285-kilobyte channels. WGN-TV was the first station to implement this system, and to make extensive use of the 10-day computer forecast data from the National Meteorological Center in Washington. Skilling invests hours of research and graphic presentation time to his daily reports, and offers his own forecast of day-to-day weather and expected weather changes. 

While at WGN-TV, Skilling received a 1994 Emmy as host of "The Cosmic Challenge," an educational program in which children answered questions about space. He won several awards for his documentary about tornadoes, "It Sounded Like a Freight Train," including a Peter Lisagor Award, a Chicago Emmy, the Illinois State Broadcaster's Public Service Program Award and the UPI Illinois Best Documentary Award. "It Sounded Like a Freight Train" and "When Lightning Strikes," his documentary about the causes and effects of lightning, are widely distributed for use in educational and public awareness efforts. Other Skilling specials that have aired on WGN-TV include: "Ten Inches of Partly Sunny," "Chasing the Wind," "Hurricane: The Greatest Storm on Earth," and "Tom Skilling's Alaska." 

Skilling is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, the National Weather Association, and Sigma Chi. He holds the American Meteorological Society's Television Seal of Approval. In 1998, Tom was awarded an IBA (Illinois Broadcasters Association) Award for "Best Weathercast in the State" and the NOAA Award (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) from the National Weather Service for Public Service. 

The American Meteorology Society (AMS) named popular WGN-TV meteorologist Tom Skilling as recipient of the 1997 Award for Outstanding Service by a Broadcast Meteorologist. In January of 1995, Skilling received an Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from Lewis University in Romeoville, Ill.