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KABC reports that Channel 7's longtime weatherman George Fischbeck died Wednesday at the age of 92. "With his signature bow-tie and big smile, Fischbeck brought us the forecast for nearly 20 years in the 1970s and 1980s before retiring from KABC," the station says. "For many Angelenos, Dr. George was more than just the weatherman. He taught us about jet streams, high and low pressures and millibars. When he was giving us his forecast for the highs and lows for the next day, he'd also remind us to be good citizens and take care of each other."
Fischbeck wrote a 2013 book, "My Life in Weather." That year he spoke with Patt Morrison at KPCC.
Neither a doctor nor a scientist, Fischbeck become a popular fixture of KABC's Eyewitness News during a particularly ebullient era on local TV news. From the obit by Valerie J. Nelson in the LA Times:
In a 1981 report, People magazine compared Fischbeck to "a caged lion" who "stalks the weather map, prowls the sound stage ... and explodes into a frenzy of animation while delivering his forecasts. He candidly admits that cameramen should get hazard pay for trying to keep up with him."
His Channel 7 colleagues said the enthusiastic weathercaster was no different when the cameras were turned off."What you saw on the air is really who he is," Randy Roach, a former KABC News writer-reporter, wrote in a foreword to Fischbeck's 2013 memoir. "Dr. George doesn't have an off and on switch like many television personalities."
"My personality — call me ebullient, if you insist — was shaped long ago," Fischbeck said in 1977 in The Times. "When I talk about the weather, I come on strong, like an evangelist making a high-powered tour of Sin City."
He honed his delivery during 23 years as a science teacher in Albuquerque schools.
