WLFI meteorologist Chad Evans signing off: ‘Writing’s been on the wall’

With uncertainty in the business and threat of a layoff looming, Evans decides to leave on his own terms. Last TV18 forecast set for 11 p.m. Friday.

Chad Evans, chief meteorologist at WLFI, will give his final forecast at TV18 at 11 tonight.

More than a month after getting word from WLFI owner Allen Media that he and nearly 100 other meteorologists in the company were targeted for layoffs, Evans said today that he is signing off before that happens.

“The writing’s been on the wall for a while,” Evans said this afternoon. “Now’s the time for me.”

Evans is on his second stint with WLFI. He spent six years with the CBS affiliate before leaving to be chief meteorologist at CBS/Fox 44 in Evansville in 2015. Evans returned to WLFI in summer 2018 – a move he said was a purpose-driven family decision by Evans and his wife, Liz, to be in Greater Lafayette and have their daughter and son grow up here.

Word of his potential departure – part of a larger restructuring plan by Allen Media to broadcast local weather segments from an Atlanta-based hub at The Weather Channel – brought a storm of viewer complaints in January. Since then, Allen Media has slowed the transition, and Evans had kept plugging on air, supplementing his local forecasts with a daily weather blog and his tree of the week features. (Friday morning, he was speaking with a school class, where students peppered him with questions about big storms and the last EF5 tornado.)

Here's a conversation this afternoon about the decision and what’s next for Evans.

Question: Tell me the situation. Is this the last day on air?

Chad Evans: Today is the last day. My last newscast is at 11 tonight.

Question: Do you have a big sendoff planned, or is it more like fading into the background?

Chad Evans: My personality is that I like kind of fading into the background. I like it low key. I'll tell everyone goodbye at 6, 10 and 11 (p.m. newscasts) and then we'll be good after that.

Question: What's been the situation since we talked about six weeks ago, when you first thought you were going to be laid off?

Chad Evans: The last six weeks, I've just kept working as normal. But I kind of saw the writing on the wall and had various people tell me what's coming. So even though I'm back, I've been told that, in the business, that this is going to end. So, I felt this was just the right time, in my heart. Like, OK, this needs to be the right time that we just need to go ahead and do this, rather than wait until I'm let go.

Question: Was there any kind of trepidation about that? Was there a feeling of being pushed and pulled in your mind about the decision?

Chad Evans: Not really, because I know it's coming. Since I know it's coming, it's just now that we can do it in a planning sort of way, rather than just saying, Oh, you're gone next week. I can plan better, and the station's been wonderful about that, allowing me to get my ducks in a row and planning on an exit date.

Question: Has Allen Media tried to make any kind of moves to say they’ve got something for you? What have you heard from the company about its plans for meteorologists?

Chad Evans: I haven't heard anything from Allen Media. I know a lot of meteorologists are getting other jobs. We just had someone from Evansville that's leaving the Evansville station owned by Allen, so a lot of people see the writing on the wall. I'm seeing a lot of candidates in news and weather just go and get other jobs. For me, my contract is up in July anyway. And it seems very likely that they wouldn't renew me, because I hear what's being planned. This felt like the right time to do it before severe weather season really ramps up.

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Question: How are you feeling about it all today, heading into those final broadcasts on TV18?

Chad Evans: I feel good. I feel comforted. You know, I have a lot of faith. I put a lot of prayer into this. I kind of feel like I'm being led this way. It's almost like there's a voice from God saying, you need to do this. So I feel very much at peace and very at ease today, actually, that it's the last day.

Question: So, what’s next?

Chad Evans: I do have other plans set up. One is some teaching at Purdue. The other is trying to do something on the side with weather, presenting and consulting.

Question: When we last talked and you said you had indications the layoff was coming, were you heartened by the response? I mean, it was pretty overwhelming in the community as that word spread.

Chad Evans: I was completely overwhelmed by the response. It was unbelievable, and it meant so much to me and my family. You know, this community is everything to us. It's more home to me than even where I grew up is home. I want to serve this community. I want to be a part of it, whether I am preparing people for a blizzard or ice storm or tornado, or talking to a school or sharing my love of weather and the Earth to others. I want my kids to grow up here. I want my kids to say, “I graduated from (Central Catholic), and I grew up in Lafayette, Indiana.” I want my kids to go to Purdue. This is where we want to be.

We chose to come back here. We had a dinner table conversation in Evansville where we were like, OK, what are we doing? Liz and I looked at each other and said, well, we want to go back to Lafayette. We both said the same thing. We said, kids, what do you want? They said, We want to go back to Lafayette. So, we wanted to find a way that we could stay here. We prayed and we researched and studied everything, asking how on earth can we stay here? I went on some other interviews. I looked for other jobs. They were out of state, but at the end of the day, we want to be here, and we're going to find any way that we can stay.

Question: Are you going to miss the whole aspect of being on TV? It’s got its own culture, its own way of life.

Chad Evans: I'm still going to be forecasting, and the favorite part of my job is basically sitting down at a blank canvas in the morning. It's the most complicated forecast and most difficult forecast you could ever have, and to sit down and basically build a forecast for the next month from scratch is the funnest part of my job. And then sharing that with people. So, whether I am sharing that through TV or through class work, or I'm sharing it through social media, none of it matters, as long as I am sharing it and I'm still involved in forecasting.

Another way I feel like I'm kind of being led is I always tell my students at Purdue that I want you all to be 1,000 times more successful than me. I want to make a difference in students’ lives. The teaching bug has bitten me a little bit, and I really want to teach meteorology and science majors. When you lecture a class, it's kind of like being in TV. I'm doing a lot of the same things, just in a different platform, in a different way. So I don't feel any like I’m going to miss television so much. I don't really feel that, because I'm still going to be teaching and then reaching out to people.

Question: So I guess the question is, did you call Marty in Otterbein or Candy in Chalmers first to break the news?

Chad Evans: That's a big part of me. I love our spotters and all the people I do weather for. I want to know everybody by name. That's very important to me. I want to know every town I drive through – all these tiny towns. I drive through Pence and drive through Deer Creek and Monon, and I can always say, Hey, I know who lives here and there. You know, that's such a big part of local weather. I think it was a group text of (weather watchers) Mary Ann and Candy and Jim, to name a few, that I reached out to.

Question: What's the sign off tonight? What are you telling people?

Chad Evans: I'm going to thank them for all the support, faith and kindness to me. You know, how do you thank people for being so good to you? You can say thank you, but words don't do it justice. There are just no words, because I just feel things very strongly when I really care about someone. … I tell everyone that not every forecast is going to be perfect. You're going to be off by 50 miles. You're going to be off by four or five degrees. Things are going to shift sometimes. But I will give you every ounce of energy I have every hour, every day. I will blog at 3 in the morning. I will be there when a tornado is bearing down. And I will give you everything I have. I hope everyone knows that. I want people to know that I hear you. I know your names, I know your towns, and it means everything to me, and I'm going to continue to serve you. You're not getting rid of me. I'm going to be around.

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