Doug Hill, veteran Washington meteorologist, dies at 71

[mahatmakanejeeves]

A detailed look back at the life of
@DougHillWx
in this
@postobits
from
@harrisondsmith
: https://washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2021/11/23/doug-hill-dead/

In this picture, he's with
@BobRyanCCM
; the two worked together at
@wjlaweather
from 2010 to 2013.

Link to tweet

It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of our dear friend and colleague Doug Hill.

He will be missed dearly by those who knew him and watched his forecasts for decades.

Our deepest sympathies to his wife Mary Ann and their family 💔😢.

https://wjla.com/news/local/doug-hill-obituary-tribute-former-wjla-7news-chief-meteorologist-passes-away-suddenly

Link to tweet

Doug Hill, veteran Washington meteorologist, dies at 71

Link to tweet

Obituaries

Doug Hill, veteran Washington meteorologist, dies at 71

By Harrison Smith
Yesterday at 7:06 p.m. EST

For 33 years, Washington meteorologist Doug Hill stepped in front of the green screen to help viewers plan around the weather, guiding them through days of sunshine, rain and seemingly never-ending snow, including during storms with names like Snowpocalypse and Snowmageddon.

With his silver hair, baritone voice and unflappable demeanor, he was a soothing fixture of CBS affiliate WUSA Channel 9 and of WJLA ABC7, where he served as chief meteorologist before retiring in 2017. He also appeared regularly on WTOP-FM, sometimes calling in while he was driving to provide live weather updates.

Mr. Hill was so devoted to the job — and so enamored with the weather, even if he never really loved the cold — that despite having the flu during the Snowzilla blizzard of 2016, when one to three feet fell across the region, “he was on for like 12 hours straight,” said Alex Liggitt, the weekend morning meteorologist at ABC7. ... “Doug was passionate about getting people prepared for even average weather,” his former colleague, meteorologist Bob Ryan, said in a statement, “but especially when any weather was dangerous, he was at the top of his game.”

Mr. Hill was 71 when he died Nov. 22 at his home in Leland, N.C. His daughter, Maggie Hill, confirmed the death but did not cite a cause.

An Air Force veteran who served for six years in the Prince George’s County Police Department, Mr. Hill took a winding path to meteorology. But he had tracked the weather ever since he was a boy, getting an early introduction to the power of thunderstorms on his seventh birthday, when a backyard celebration at his family’s rowhouse in the Baltimore suburbs was forced inside by the sound of thunder.

Barred from going into an inflatable pool that his parents had acquired for the occasion, Mr. Hill said he raised his fist to the heavens and said, “God, let lightning strike this house.” Moments later, a thunderbolt struck the spot where power lines entered the home. Mr. Hill was chastened but uninjured. ... “That changed my life forever,” he told the Calvert Recorder of Southern Maryland. “There are those that will say that is an odd coincidence. In my world, where I come from, that is not a coincidence.”

{snip}

Announcing his retirement from WJLA, Mr. Hill said he wanted to focus on his family and on Christian ministry, including by teaching Sunday school at Chesapeake Church in Huntingtown, Md., and volunteering with End Hunger in Calvert County, a nonprofit organization. ... He had also grown tired of certain aspects of weather forecasting. Retiring meant a whole new lifestyle, he told the Calvert Record: “I have been wearing a suit my whole life for five days a week. It’s time to move on.”

By Harrison Smith
Harrison Smith is a reporter on The Washington Post's obituaries desk. Since joining the obituaries section in 2015, he has profiled big-game hunters, fallen dictators and Olympic champions. He sometimes covers the living as well, and previously co-founded the South Side Weekly, a community newspaper in Chicago. Twitter https://twitter.com/harrisondsmith