Distinguished Australian meteorologist and tv presenter Alan Wilkie has died on the age of 94, lower than two months after his fellow former weatherman brother Ray Wilkie.
Mr Wilkie “passed away peacefully” on Monday night time surrounded by his three youngsters, , Andrew, Katrina and Michelle, in line with Nine News.
He offered the climate on that community for greater than 25 years.
Mr Wilkie grew to become Australia’s first climate presenter on the ABC within the Fifties.
He mirrored on his first look on tv in an interview with The Australian Women’s Weekly in 1977, the place he defined he solely went for the job as a result of his present employer, the Bureau of Meteorology, insisted.
“It was in the very first week of television and I nearly died. I was so frightened. I don’t remember a single thing I said, but it must have been all right,” he mentioned.
Mr Wilkie was the ABC’s climate presenter from 1956 to 1960 after which he took a break from tv.
He reappeared on Australians’ tv screens in 1986 when he joined Channel 7 and about 9 years later her moved on to Channel 9. He offered there for greater than 25 years.
In the 1977 profile piece, simply after he joined Channel 9 and twenty years after he first appeared on tv, Mr Wilkie mentioned he was amazed that folks nonetheless recognised him.
“They seem to know all about me, they even recognise my voice,” he mentioned.
“I don’t take myself seriously as a television personality but I do take the weather seriously,” he continued.
“I live the forecasts. My day starts about 5.30am when I get up and ring the Weather Bureau to find out what’s been happening overnight to the systems, particularly in the upper atmosphere. I have a good think about it, stick my head out of the window for a look around and then do my 6.30am forecast for radio station 2SM.
“I get satellite pictures from Macquarie University about 8.30am and then I drive up to Pearce’s Corner, not far away, and watch cloud movements.
“You can’t just rely on charts. You have to look at what’s happening.”
Mr Wilkie informed the publication he can be doing a “first in forecasting” on Channel 9, which might be exhibiting viewers a chart of the possible climate for the following day.
Mr Wilkie grew up within the rural city of Childers in Queensland’s Bundaberg Region.
His brother, Ray Wilkie, was additionally a meterologist and famend Network 10 climate presenter.
He died in May at aged 98.
Ray served within the second world struggle with the Royal Australian Air Force after which had a protracted profession with the Bureau of Meteorology earlier than changing into a climate presenter for Eyewitness News in Brisbane in 1985.
Source: www.news.com.au
