Tom Skilling, the dean of Chicago weather forecasters, says he’ll be retiring on Feb. 28.

He made the announcement Thursday on “WGN Evening News,” beginning the countdown to the end of his 45-year run on WGN-Channel 9.

“If you had told young Tom Skilling that he would go on to have a career in weather spanning seven decades, working in Chicago, with some truly wonderful people, I think he would be overjoyed,” Skilling said in a statement. “And that’s how I feel today. Overjoyed at the colleagues I’ve worked with, the viewers I’ve met, the stories I’ve covered. Overjoyed and grateful. I wouldn’t trade a single minute of it for anything.”

Since the launch of his career at age 14 at WKKD in Aurora, Skilling has a developed a reputation as a reliable forecaster of the weather and the consummate meteorological geek.

“There was a time when weather forecasting was seen as a not-serious profession,” said WGN-TV News Director Dominick Stasi. “But Tom has taken it to a much higher level. He carefully explains complex meteorological concepts in layman’s terms, support by graphics often featuring isobars and upper-airs charts. Nobody was doing that when he started. Bottom line, he has always treated the audience with respect.”