The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette this morning has a story that broadcast meteorologist Joe DeNardo died. Though the story acknowledges DeNardo's time with KDKA in the 1960's, the memories in that story are mostly from the time after I left the area.
Here are some memories from the 1960's. Joe was a star on both the radio and television sides of KDKA. In the mid-60's KDKA radio was trying to blend traditional public service news/sports with top-40 music. KDKA's morning radio show Pallan and Trow I was surprised to read started only in November 1965 and ran through April 1968. Pallan and Trow were talented comedian entertainers, not just ordinary hosts of a morning news/top-40 time slot. There was a certain time when I was getting ready for school when Joe would call in with the forecast discussion. Sometimes he couldn't stop laughing at the antics of the hosts, and he would have to call back later. I was a fan of Joe as much for being a straight man for Pallan and Trow as for being a serious meteorologist.
I was slow to give up completely on KDKA's blend. In the spring of 1967 I was taught to tune-in and turn-on to Chicago's upstart WCFL, which could be picked up after dark by tuning KDKA and then adjusting the dial slightly from 1020 to 1000. WCFL's weather forecasts were as brief as possible. It might be 89 in the northwest suburbs, 93 in the southwest suburbs, and 65 downtown at the lake. And of course as a good rule of thumb Chicago's weather today would be Pittsburgh's weather tomorrow.
So I credit WCFL as much as Joe DeNardo for my interest in weather. But Joe had the serious technical details, especially on the Sunday 11 pm newscast, when he would provide an outlook for the week ahead. At mid-week he would slide across the forecast 500-mb map, copied with grease pen onto a large clear plastic overlay. "Enhanced lake-effect snow showers on Wednesday/Thursday as this upper-air trough passes." The rest of the outlook into the following Sunday clearly communicated that his was a plausible scenario extrapolating into what was then for computer forecasts terra incognita.
