Dallas Raines predicts more weather forecasts

Dallas Raines recalls the first time he was mesmerized by the weather.

- BY JAMES RAINEY

RONALDO BOLANOS LA. Times

DALLAS RAINES has forecast ABC7 weather for more than 41 years.

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.

"Something just changed for me," Raines said. "I thought, 'How can nature do this?' "

Raines is still asking those sorts of questions today and still with a childlike 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.

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.