Meteorologist Steve Horstmeyer, the dean of Cincinnati’s TV meteorologists, as usual has a simple, direct forecast for his retirement.
“I need a change. I’m really looking forward to it,” says Hortsmeyer, 72, who does his final forecast during WXIX-TV’s 10-11:30 p.m. newscast Thursday, Aug. 28.
Count me among the many loyal Horstmeyer viewers who are not looking forward to Horstmeyer leaving television after 48 years. When the weather turned bad, I turned to Horstmeyer on Fox 19. Yes, I’d check out the other TV meteorologists during those way-too-long live broadcasts during severe weather, but I’d always start with Horstmeyer, who was trained by legendary meteorologist Tony Sands, Cincinnati’s original TV Weather Authority, on the first station with its own radar.
The Cincinnati native started his career in 1977 as a volunteer for Sands at WLWT-TV, and went full-time in 1978. He later worked at WKRC-TV with Tim Hedrick before hired as Channel 19’s chief meteorologist in 2008. His arrival made Channel 19 a major player in local TV because Horstmeyer’s experience spanning into six decades made him one of the most authoritative and trusted meteorologists in Cincinnati’s TV history.
Horstmeyer was a junior high school math teacher in April 1977 when he started on Sands’ weather team. He finally got a full-time paid position at Channel 5 in May 1978, at age 24. He jumped to Tim Hedrick’s WKRC-TV staff in 1989 to do morning weather with Cammy Dierking and John Lomax, then joined WXIX-TV in 2008 for the opportunity to be a chief meteorologist.
“When Fox 19 was able to get him to cross the street and join us, he brought with him so much experience, expertise, and authority to our news operation, which was the youngest in town,” says evening co-anchor Rob Williams.
Horstmeyer’s career has intersected with many Cincinnati TV icons. He started at Channel 5 before Jerry Springer, when Tom Atkins and Steve Douglas anchored newscasts. He replaced Glenn “Skipper” Ryle on Channel 12’s Good Morning Cincinnati. He’s worked with a "who’s who" of local TV personalities: Sands, Hedrick, Dierking, Lomax, Nick Clooney, Bob Braun, Rob Braun, Bob Herzog, Pat Barry, Bill Myers, Tricia Macke, Jack Atherton, Ken Broo, and George Vogel, to name a few. (Here's a clip of him doing weekend weather with WKRC-TV's John Lomax after joining the station in 1989.)
Horstmeyer is a walking Cincinnati television history book, in addition to being a respected forecaster.
He’s earned his retirement, but I’ll miss him. Let me count the ways:
1. ONE OF US
Hostmeyer grew up in Hyde Park and the Loveland area. He graduated from Moeller High School in 1971, and Miami University in 1975. Sometimes he could be a little geeky, but that’s why we love him. He measured snow with a ruler. He took us to tornado damage. He always tried to communicate the science along with a practical, straight-forward description of incoming weather conditions. He was a Cincinnatian’s Cincinnatian, much like Dave Lapham on the Bengals broadcasts, the late Joe Nuxhall on Reds games, and Jim Scott on morning radio.
As I wrote in 2008 when he joined Fox 19: “Steve Horstmeyer is more like one of us than most of the blow-dried, well-dressed men on local TV news. That’s why he’s one of the most popular and trusted meteorologists in town.”
2. BIG MOVE
Not only did Horstmeyer bring legitimacy to WXIX-TV, but his bosses used his arrival to start the news expansion that paved the way for the next decade. Before he arrived in August 2008, Fox 19 only aired morning news ending at 9 a.m., and an hour at 10 p.m. Channel 19 added an evening newscast at 6:30 p.m. with Horstmeyer, Tricia Macke, and Jack Atherton. Now Fox broadcasts local news 4:30 a.m.-noon; 3-7 p.m. and 10-11:30 p.m.
3. WEATHER KID
He grew up watching Sands on Channel 5, the only Cincinnati station with its own radar. Although Horstmeyer was fascinated by the weather, he always figured he’d be a teacher. He earned a degree in earth science and mathematics education at Miami University, and a master’s degree in geography with an emphasis in meteorology from the University of Nebraska in 1976.
4. IN LIVING COLOR
Horstmeyer was teaching math and earth science at Dater Junior High School in April 1977 when he saw Sands promoting Channel 5’s new color radar, a Cincinnati TV first, to replace its original military surplus black-and-white radar. “That was a really big advance. You could see the intensity of the weather instead of just a gray blob,” he said. Horstmeyer was impressed Channel 5 was making a big commitment to weather. He called Sands, and started volunteering in the WLWT-TV weather office.
“What are the chances you make a phone call to the guy you grew up watching doing TV weather, and he hires you and changes your life?” he told me in 2008. We’re glad he did.
5. TRICK OR GEEK
While doing WKRC-TV’s Good Morning Cincinnati, Horstmeyer got the idea to wear a green skeleton costume for Halloween. The green disappeared against the green “weather wall,” so viewers only saw the skeleton when Horstmeyer presented the weather. Former Fox 19 colleague Frank Marzullo noted that “after all the countless forecasts Steve provided, a close second of the things people talk about is his yearly skeleton forecast.”
6. PAT BARRY
Horstmeyer’s TV career was at a crossroads in 1984, when Springer suggested that Channel 5 hire Q102 DJ Pat Barry to be “our Willard Scott,” a personality who wasn’t a meteorologist like the 1980s Today show forecaster. When WLWT-TV General Manager Tony Sands told Horstmeyer about Barry’s hiring he said, “ 'I know how you feel about non-meteorologists doing the weather, so you have two choices: You can walk out of this office right now, or you could train Pat Barry,' ” Horstmeyer recalled. He chose to stay and train Pat. They became good friends, and Barry’s presence helped build ratings for Channel 5’s third-place Springer-Rashid team.
7. TALL 12
Channel 5 fired Horstmeyer four months later, but soon hired him back to fill a weather void. He stayed until 1989, when Ryle, the children’s TV host-turned morning weatherman, retired from WKRC-TV. Hedrick hired him to do Good Morning Cincinnati with Dierking and Lomax.
8. FOUNTAIN SQUARE
Horstmeyer was there with Dierking and Lomax when WKRC-TV moved its live broadcast of Good Morning Cincinnati to the Fifth Third Center on Fountain Square. “Steve, John, and I had a special bond like siblings. We would’ve done anything for each other,” says Dierking, who now lives in Evergreen, Colorado.
“The happiest time was working with John Lomax and Cammy Dierking on Channel 12’s morning show,” Horstmeyer says. Even if it meant getting up at 1 a.m. for 19 years.
9. SEPT. 11, 2001
They had just finished their Fountain Square broadcast on 9/11 when Horstmeyer saw the breaking news about terrorists flying jets into the World Trade Center towers.
“Cammy was out on the square cutting a promo. I saw the news (bulletin) on the monitor, and I started banging on the window to get her attention. People started watching our TV monitors (in the window). About 100 people were there. Our bosses wanted us to return to the station right away, but we couldn’t leave those people,” he recalls.
10. TV SURVIVOR
Horstmeyer is one of the few who worked both in historic Crosley Square for WLWT-TV, Cincinnati’s first and oldest station and news operation (1948), and for WXIX-TV, the newest station (1968) with the youngest news operation (1993). When he arrived in 1977 the WLWT-TV weather office was in the COMEX building at 9th and Elm streets, before moving into the basement of Channel 5’s historic Crosley Square, where the Bob Braun, Ruth Lyons, Paul Dixon, and Midwestern Hayride shows were broadcast.
11. TORNADO, PART 1
Horstmeyer says his most memorable night was broadcasting live when a F-4 tornado outbreak swept over southern Illinois and Indiana and hit Harrison on Saturday night, June 2, 1990. With a skeletal crew in the newsroom, Channel 12 sent photographer Michael Benedic to Harrison, where first responders “used his lights to help pull people out of collapsed buildings,” Horstmeyer says.
12. TORNADO, PART 2
After an F-4 tornado killed four people in the Blue Ash/Montgomery area near Sycamore High School, Horstmeyer and Dierking broadcast live from the scene on April 9, 1999. “Had that tornado been one-and-a-half hours later, and a couple hundred yards up the road, it would have hit when all the kids were going to school,” he says.
13. NEWPORT NEWS
He reached out to WXIX-TV in early 2008 as his Channel 12 contract was expiring. Newport Television was buying WKRC-TV, and nobody could tell him if he’d be renewed or not. He heard that WXIX-TV had a weather opening and called the news director. He signed with Channel 19 in March, but couldn’t appear on Channel 19 until August.
14. OFF THE RADAR
When he joined Fox 19 in 2008, the other three TV news departments each had its own radar. Now only WCPO-TV has one. Horstmeyer says TV stations today rely on improved weather and airport radars in Wilmington, Ohio, Kenton County (near CVG), Dayton, Indianapolis, Louisville, and Columbus.
“We have eight radars we can use to do forecasts,” he says. Operating and maintaining a private radar system “in terms of the cost vs. benefits in this market, it’s a loser. It’s not an economically feasible expense, especially the way TV revenues are going (down).”
15. HOMEBODY
Lomax once told me that when people asked him about Horstmeyer that he would tell them: “The Steve viewers see on TV is the same guy they’ll see in Home Depot. There is absolutely no pretension about Steve. He cares little about fashion or appearance. He’s very much a ‘function over form’ kind of guy."
16. NECK WEAR
I loved his ties. Did you notice? Horstmeyer has an extensive collection of weather-related ties — rain drops, snowflakes, suns — that he’s worn on the air for decades. We may not see them again on Horstmeyer, who is a shorts and sandals guy at home.
“I told my wife I’m never going to wear a tie again,” he says. What will happen to them? “I don’t know. I’ll probably just put them in a box. Most of the young people don’t want them.”
17. HIS STROKE
He suffered a major stroke — while doing the weather on TV — four years ago, but that didn’t deter him. Horstmeyer says he couldn’t remember the days of the week while doing his 10 p.m. forecast, and “had some issues” with his right leg and right arm.
“I didn’t know it (was a stroke) for four days. The doctor said I had a major stroke. It came as a complete surprise to me.” The doctor blamed it on stress, and said the impact wasn’t severe because Horstmeyer was “in good shape.” Horstmeyer wanted to retire then, “but the station wanted me to stay, so I did.” He signed a new deal that expired March 16. Twice he’s pushed back his retirement date (to May 21, then Aug. 28) while the station searches for his successor.
18. CLASS ACT
To reduce his workload after the stroke he stopped teaching at Mount St. Joseph University. He also had taught at the University of Cincinnati and Miami. “Steve is a pro on air. He’s real and has a great sense of humor and is one of the smartest people I know. I call him the professor,” Macke says.
19. HOMETOWN HERO
Rarely can someone work five decades on television in their hometown. He’s a vanishing breed, since so many on-air TV personalities are leaving the TV business in their 30s for 9-to-5 weekday jobs.
“Steve's success is not only that he is a hometown guy, but his deep dedication to keeping people safe, informed, and making us, the viewer, a little smarter after watching his forecasts," says Marzullo, his coworker for 17 years. "His straight-forward approach is why so many have trusted him throughout the years.”
“He has had a wonderful life, an impressive career and has set the standard for forecasting the weather in Cincinnati," Macke says. "I am lucky to have been a part of it.”
Horstmeyer plans to travel, bicycle, take lots of photos, and enjoy dinners with his wife, Annie, a paralegal for a downtown Cincinnati law firm.
“It will be nice to have a normal life. It will be nice to have dinner with my wife. She and I never have had the same schedule," he says.
“It’s time (to retire). You know when it’s time.”
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