{"id":455767,"date":"2025-12-18T15:06:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T15:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/455767\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T15:06:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T15:06:19","slug":"l-a-weatherman-dallas-raines-still-loves-the-weather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/455767\/","title":{"rendered":"L.A. weatherman Dallas Raines still loves the weather"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dallas Raines recalls the first time he was mesmerized by the weather. <\/p>\n

A tornado watch had been issued in his hometown of Thomaston, Ga., and Raines and all the other sixth-graders had been ordered to shelter in a school basement. But he hid in a closet, lingering just long enough to see the funnel cloud and, later, giant pecan trees knocked over like saplings.<\/p>\n

You’re reading the Essential California newsletter <\/p>\n

\u201cSomething just changed for me,\u201d Raines said. \u201cI thought, \u2018How can nature do this?\u2019\u201c<\/p>\n

Raines is still asking those sorts of questions today and still with a child-like wonder, about six decades later. Granted, he has more answers now, as the chief meteorologist at ABC7 in Los Angeles, where he has spent more than 41 years forecasting the weather.<\/p>\n

That puts the perpetually tanned and fit weatherman in rare company. A Texas weathercaster also put in 41 years at a single station before retiring in 1991. The reigning endurance champion for weathercasting in one locale appears to be Dick Goddard, who spent 51 years at WJW Channel 8 in Cleveland before his 2016 retirement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still love it,\u201d Raines, 72, said in an interview at the ABC7 studio in Glendale on Wednesday. \u201cAt this point in my career, it\u2019s kind of like I\u2019ll do whatever I can, if it helps the station.\u201d<\/p>\n

A fixture in the L.A. weather scene<\/p>\n

When Raines (his real name) hit the 40-year mark in 2024, the station held an <\/a>on-air <\/a>celebration<\/a>. It became clear from the array of celebrities who participated in a tribute reel that Raines had become a fixture, like Jack Nicholson sitting courtside at Lakers games. <\/p>\n

Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel recounted how he contacted Raines when a thunderstorm threatened to interrupt his wedding in Ojai.<\/p>\n

\u201cI called Dallas and I said, \u2018Dallas, please, is there anything you could do?\u2019 And Dallas went outside on this front lawn,\u201d Kimmel said. \u201cHe looked up at the sky and he shouted at the thunderclouds, \u2018Go away! I beseech thee!\u2019 And the sky cleared, we had a beautiful wedding thanks to the power of Mr. Dallas Raines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colleagues like to mimic his fist pump and the way he crouches down to get just the right angle on the maps flowing behind him on a green screen. He appears weekdays on newscasts at 4 p.m., 5 p.m., 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. There can be as many as 13 on-air appearances across those four newscasts, with only a couple of hours at home in La Ca\u00f1ada Flintridge to regroup before driving back to Glendale for the late news.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are Los Angeles weather,\u201d Lisa Ann Walter of television\u2019s \u201cAbbott Elementary\u201d said in the tribute video. \u201cYou\u2019re mostly sunny and sometimes a little windy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Replacing Dr. Fischbeck<\/p>\n

Raines recalls coming home from that childhood twister to pore over encyclopedia entries on meteorology. When he went to Florida State University (where he also walked on as a football quarterback) he studied broadcasting, with meteorology as a minor.<\/p>\n

Dr. George Fischbeck served for years before Raines at KABC. The mustachioed weatherman, with his heavy-rimmed glasses, could have passed for Groucho Marx. He practically burst through the screen with excitement<\/a> about seemingly every forecast. \u201cThose shows were incredibly compelling,\u201d Raines said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what I\u2019ve tried to carry through all of these years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raines, a married father of three grown children, has heard all the jokes about the superfluousness of a meteorologist in mild L.A. \u201cNo, we don\u2019t have hurricanes, or only two in recorded history,\u201d Raines said, noting one hit in 1858 in San Diego and the other in 1939 in Long Beach (though, by landfall, it was downgraded to a tropical storm.) \u201cBut we have all these microclimates. People have completely different ideas once they\u2019ve lived here and seen it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He recalled how deadly serious weather can become, as when mudslides in Montecito after a 2018 deluge killed 23 people and when a wind-driven fire calamity destroyed broad sections of Altadena, Pacific Palisades and Malibu this year. Make no mistake, Raines said: \u201cThe weather is really a big deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s top stories \"Rashi <\/p>\n

Rashi Kaslow on the docks in Marina del Rey near where he lives on a boat after he lost his home in the Palisades fire.<\/p>\n

(Jason Armond \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

After the fires, through personal lensesReiner murder investigationMore than $10 million for L.A. homeless prevention<\/p>\n