Pioneering weather presenter Alan Wilkie, heralded as Australia’s first TV meteorologist, has died aged 94.
Nine reported news he “died peacefully” on Monday night surrounded by his three children, less than two months after his brother, fellow meteorologist Ray Wilkie.
Alan Wilkie started with the ABC News in 1956, joining Seven news in 1968 then Nine news in the late 1970s and has provided weather for more than 25 years, including “Wilkie’s Weather”. It is estimated that he read the weather 10,000 times on TV.
“I don’t take myself seriously as a TV personality, but I do take the weather seriously,” she once said.
“My day begins around 5.30 when I get up and call the Weather Bureau to find out what is happening to the systems overnight, particularly in the upper atmosphere. I think it through, poke my head out the window to have a look around, and then do the 6.30 forecast for radio station 2SM.
‘I get satellite images from Macquarie University around 8.30 and then drive up to Pearce’s Corner, not far away, and watch the clouds move.
“You can’t rely on graphs alone. You have to watch what is happening.
(embed)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFf982NQPms(/embed)
