EARTH — Following the retirement of WGN-TV’s weatherman Tom Skilling after a 45 year long television career, Weather has announced that it too will be retiring by the end of March, saying that won’t be the same without Skilling around to predict it.
“It’s been a good run,” said Weather, approx. 4.6 billion, the state of the atmosphere at any given time or place, “but in all my time as weather, I never had as much fun as I did working with Tom. Without him making predictions about whatever I’m going to be doing to the Chicagoland area, I don’t have the motivation anymore. It’s time for us both to move on.”
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Weather, which has held its position on Earth since the formation of the atmosphere and water on the planet, expressed a deep admiration for the meteorologist who’d been tracking its patterns since taking a job at Aurora, IL’s WKKD radio station in 1966.
“I watched him go from a kid who could barely read a barometer to a man who could easily read a printed-out email from the National Weather Service while smiling in front of a green screen. He’s been my inspiration for the brief fraction of time when our existences have overlapped.”
After announcing that it would also be stepping down from a storied, several-billion year career, Weather laid out a multi-phase plan to ease out of its duties. “In early March I’m going to stop with wind, then no more clouds — which is honestly a relief, they’ve always been a pain in the ass,” said Weather. “Then before April I’m going to just pick a temperature and that’s what it’s going to be from then on. How does everyone feel about 62 degrees? Fahrenheit of course, I’m not trying to kill everyone.”
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As WGN viewers said goodbye to Skilling, many expressed well-wishes to the meteorologist, and concerns that Weather would be ending.
“I grew up watching Skilling, he’s my favorite weatherman. Went through a Steve Baskerville phase in the 80’s, but he sold out.” said William Grossen, 54, a postal worker. “I’m sad to see Skilling go, but I think I’m also going to miss the rain and snow. The sun doesn’t count as weather, right?”
“Look, you humans need to learn nothing lasts forever,” said Weather, “I don’t want to be like Jeopardy or the Daily Show and just limp along without my main guy, trying different meteorologists out till I find someone who predicts me as well as he did. This is a natural conclusion to my whole ‘weather era.’”
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When asked about what their post-career plan was, Weather mentioned settling down after a life on the move, and that they hoped to work on a biography of Tom Skilling, tentatively titled Skilling Me Softly: A Passion for Prediction.
