Atlanta chief meteorologist David Chandley to retire after 42 years
Fox 5 chief meteorologist David Chandley has announced he plans to retire in April, soon after he turns 64.
His career has spanned 42 years since he graduated from the University of Georgia in 1984. After stints at stations in Albany, Macon and Columbus, he joined Atlanta’s No. 1 news station, WSB-TV, in 1988. He became chief meteorologist at Fox 5 (WAGA-TV) in 2015.
“The Lord has blessed me with a career that has exceeded my dreams and expectations,” Chandley wrote on social media Monday afternoon. “A simple thank you to the viewers will never be enough, but it’s my start.”
In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution after his 6 p.m. newscast, he said he plans to have dinner with his wife every night, spend more time with his three granddaughters, take more family trips and take care of his parents.
“It’s time to kick back and enjoy the next phase of my life,” he said. “I’m healthy. I’ve loved this business, but I’ve been constrained by the clock and calendar. When there’s severe weather, you start compounding the number of extra hours. As I’ve gotten older, it’s tougher to bounce back at the level I want to be at.”
He noted that his golf buddies are often in bed by 10 p.m., and he still has two more hours of work.
Chandley owns a primary home in Brookhaven and a home overlooking Lake Oconee. He now plans to move to Lake Oconee full time.
He said when he started at WALB-TV in Albany in 1984, he was using a weather board, an entirely analog presentation. Now everything is green screen, he said, and technology has vastly improved forecasting.
Chandley is not known to hype bad weather with “storm of the century”-style presentations. “I’m only going to raise my voice when I need to,” he said, “not just because I can.”
He spent more than a quarter century at WSB-TV, but by the mid-2010s, he wanted to be chief meteorologist. WSB-TV’s chief, Glenn Burns, was not in a position to retire at the time. So Chandley jumped to rival Fox 5 after Ken Cook retired.
“He was a good guy,” Burns told the AJC. “We had a great rapport. He wanted to go his own way and became a great competitor. He has good skills as a meteorologist. I taught him well!”
Burns also lauded Chandley as a great family man. “Retirement is wonderful,” he added. “He will get a chance to play more golf.”
Chandley, whose golf handicap is 7, said there are two things he definitely will not be doing after retirement: “I won’t be running for office, and I won’t be running an internet weather page.”
