Longtime Seattle TV weather forecaster Steve Pool died this week from early onset Alzheimer’s disease, his family said Friday.
“We are so blessed to have had him in our lives,” wrote his wife, Michelle Lee Pool, on his Facebook page. “He was an extraordinary man, husband, father and good friend to many. Please know that he truly loved his job and this community and felt so privileged to be a part of your lives.”
KOMO 4, for which Steve Pool, 70, worked for four decades, said he died Wednesday.
“He was the best,” KOMO anchor Eric Johnson wrote on Facebook. “Unforgettable, irreplaceable. A sweet man, a great friend and a legendary broadcaster.”
Pool graduated from Tyee High School in SeaTac, where he served as student body president. He began his career with KOMO as an intern, while still a student at the University of Washington. He was hired full time in 1978 after graduating and started his career by covering sports and news, according to KOMO.
In 1984, he became KOMO’s chief weather forecaster after going back to the UW for specialized training in atmospheric sciences. He won several Emmys for his work, breaking ground as one of the first Black weather forecasters in the country.
“I was the only one from the plains to the Pacific Ocean, and I was very much aware of it,” Pool told The Seattle Times in 2019. “I was hoping it would open doors. I give a lot of props to KOMO. They were as proud of it as I was, that they were able to do that.”
About a year into his time as chief weather forecaster, his agent called. Would he fill in for ABC’s “Good Morning America” when their weather person went on vacation?
“To say I was stunned is a huge understatement,” Pool wrote on his personal website. “My answer? Not just yes but hell yah!”
He would go on to fill in for “Good Morning America” more than 70 times over the years.
He was inducted into the UW Communications Hall of Fame in 2004.
“Always a staple in our Puget Sound community, Steve will be deeply missed,” the university posted on the social media platform X on Friday.
“His trailblazing life and journalism career set an incomparable standard for the Seattle media industry,” the Seattle Association of Black Journalists said in a statement, adding that Pool’s “endearing combination” of skill, grace, wit and versatility, made him feel like family to viewers.
And for fellow journalists, he was a “critical example for the mission and credibility of SABJ,” chapter President Jerry Brewer said in a statement. “We’ll never forget that we stand on the shoulders of an incredible journalist whose talent was matched only by the kind and unselfish way he went about doing the job.”
“I believe his excellence and elegance helped to open the door and hold it open for me and all the other Black television journalists in Seattle,” said Essex Porter, who retired in 2021 after nearly four decades as a KIRO 7 reporter.
Tributes for Pool on Friday went beyond Seattle. In Fort Wayne, Ind., Matt Leach, chief meteorologist for WPTA-TV, said it was “the loss of a legend in the weather community.”
Pool, he wrote in a Facebook post, sparked his love for weather as he watched him deliver the forecast while growing up in Silverdale, Kitsap County.
“From such a young age I was drawn in by his infectious personality,” Leach wrote. He met Pool as a 12th birthday present and 10 years later, he interned under Pool.
“He was just as lovely in person as he was on TV. … To call him my mentor is a huge honor.”
In September 2018, Pool was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent a year of proton therapy treatment at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance Proton Therapy Center.
Reflecting on his career when he retired in 2019, Pool told The Times he always strove to be an optimist in the newsroom.
“I always think, ‘You’re lucky to be doing this job. It’s not easy to get in here,’ ” Pool said.
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell called Pool a “Seattle news legend and pioneer” in a social media post.
“Steve Pool was kind and authentic — he epitomized professionalism,” Harrell wrote. “I join in mourning his passing and send my heartfelt condolences to his family. Steve’s legacy will live on through the people and causes he supported.”
Pool is survived by his wife, Michelle, and daughters Lindsey and Marissa.
This story includes information from Seattle Times archives.