Legendary meteorologist Volkman tried to 'educate people about the weather'
Harry Volkman's career as a meteorologist began near the dawn of two technologies — television and modern weather forecasting.
By the time he retired in 2004, Volkman had become a legendary Chicago-area weather broadcaster and had witnessed the advent of modern forecasting tools such as weather radar, satellites and computers.
The 89-year-old longtime Itasca resident died Thursday at Oakton Pavilion nursing home in Des Plaines following a brief hospitalization for a respiratory ailment earlier this summer, according to his son, radio personality Eddie Volkman.
Harry Volkman broadcast the first tornado warning to the public in 1952, a time when warnings only went to the military because it was thought the reports would panic the general public.
He was known for the songs he'd occasionally break into during a broadcast — and for the boutonnieres he often wore as gifts from the thousands of schools he would visit in his spare time.
Volkman previously told the Daily Herald that, at one point, he considered being a teacher, and he says he tried to “educate people about the weather” during his broadcasts.
As a kid, Volkman ran a tiny radio station out of his home in Sommerville, Mass. After graduating from high school, he was drafted into the Army near the end of World War II.
He then studied meteorology at Spartan School of Aeronautics and broadcasting at the University of Tulsa. He started reporting weather on radio and quickly moved to TV. He worked for a Tulsa TV station and two stations in Oklahoma City before coming to Chicago in 1959 to forecast weather on WNBQ, which later became WMAQ.
Volkman changed jobs often, going from WGN Channel 9 to WMAQ Channel 5, back to WGN and then to WBBM Channel 2 before finishing his career at WFLD Fox TV Channel 32, where he retired in 2004.
“If you really love something,” Volkman told the Daily Herald three years later, “you don't get tired of it ever.”
In addition to son Eddie, Volkman is survived by his wife, Alana, sons Jerry and Ron, daughter Charlotte, 10 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Plans for a public memorial service are pending.